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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Character, by Samuel Smiles
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Character
+
+Author: Samuel Smiles
+
+Posting Date: December 11, 2008 [EBook #2541]
+Release Date: March, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARACTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sean Hackett
+
+
+
+
+
+CHARACTER
+
+By Samuel Smiles
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.--INFLUENCE OF CHARACTER.
+
+
+
+     "Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing
+     is man"--DANIEL.
+
+     "Character is moral order seen through the medium, of an
+     individual nature.... Men of character are the conscience of
+     the society to which they belong."--EMERSON.
+
+     "The prosperity of a country depends, not on the abundance
+     of its revenues, nor on the strength of its fortifications,
+     nor on the beauty of its public buildings; but it consists
+     in the number of its cultivated citizens, in its men of
+     education, enlightenment, and character; here are to be
+     found its true interest, its chief strength, its real
+     power."--MARTIN LUTHER.
+
+
+Character is one of the greatest motive powers in the world. In its
+noblest embodiments, it exemplifies human nature in its highest forms,
+for it exhibits man at his best.
+
+Men of genuine excellence, in every station of life--men of industry,
+of integrity, of high principle, of sterling honesty of purpose--command
+the spontaneous homage of mankind. It is natural to believe in such men,
+to have confidence in them, and to imitate them. All that is good in
+the world is upheld by them, and without their presence in it the world
+would not be worth living in.
+
+Although genius always commands admiration, character most secures
+respect. The former is more the product of brain-power, the latter of
+heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life. Men
+of genius stand to society in the relation of its intellect, as men
+of character of its conscience; and while the former are admired, the
+latter are followed.
+
+Great men are always exceptional men; and greatness itself is but
+comparative. Indeed, the range of most men in life is so limited, that
+very few have the opportunity of being great. But each man can act his
+part honestly and honourably, and to the best of his ability. He can use
+his gifts, and not abuse them. He can strive to make the best of life.
+He can be true, just, honest, and faithful, even in small things. In a
+word, he can do his Duty in that sphere in which Providence has placed
+him.
+
+Commonplace though it may appear, this doing of one's Duty embodies the
+highest ideal of life and character. There may be nothing heroic about
+it; but the common lot of men is not heroic. And though the abiding
+sense of Duty upholds man in his highest attitudes, it also equally
+sustains him in the transaction of the ordinary affairs of everyday
+existence. Man's life is "centred in the sphere of common duties." The
+most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most
+in request for daily use. They wear the best, and last the longest.
+Superfine virtues, which are above the standard of common men, may only
+be sources of temptation and danger. Burke has truly said that "the
+human system which rests for its basis on the heroic virtues is sure to
+have a superstructure of weakness or of profligacy."
+
+When Dr. Abbot, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, drew the character
+of his deceased friend Thomas Sackville, [101] he did not dwell upon his
+merits as a statesman, or his genius as a poet, but upon his virtues as
+a man in relation to the ordinary duties of life. "How many rare things
+were in him!" said he. "Who more loving unto his wife? Who more kind
+unto his children?--Who more fast unto his friend?--Who more moderate
+unto his enemy?--Who more true to his word?" Indeed, we can always
+better understand and appreciate a man's real character by the manner in
+which he conducts himself towards those who are the most nearly related
+to him, and by his transaction of the seemingly commonplace details of
+daily duty, than by his public exhibition of himself as an author, an
+orator, or a statesman.
+
+At the same time, while Duty, for the most part, applies to the conduct
+of affairs in common life by the average of common men, it is also a
+sustaining power to men of the very highest standard of character. They
+may not have either money, or property, or learning, or power; and
+yet they may be strong in heart and rich in spirit--honest, truthful,
+dutiful. And whoever strives to do his duty faithfully is fulfilling
+the purpose for which he was created, and building up in himself the
+principles of a manly character. There are many persons of whom it
+may be said that they have no other possession in the world but their
+character, and yet they stand as firmly upon it as any crowned king.
+
+Intellectual culture has no necessary relation to purity or excellence
+of character. In the New Testament, appeals are constantly made to the
+heart of man and to "the spirit we are of," whilst allusions to the
+intellect are of very rare occurrence. "A handful of good life," says
+George Herbert, "is worth a bushel of learning." Not that learning is
+to be despised, but that it must be allied to goodness. Intellectual
+capacity is sometimes found associated with the meanest moral character
+with abject servility to those in high places, and arrogance to those of
+low estate. A man may be accomplished in art, literature, and science,
+and yet, in honesty, virtue, truthfulness, and the spirit of duty, be
+entitled to take rank after many a poor and illiterate peasant.
+
+"You insist," wrote Perthes to a friend, "on respect for learned men. I
+say, Amen! But, at the same time, don't forget that largeness of mind,
+depth of thought, appreciation of the lofty, experience of the world,
+delicacy of manner, tact and energy in action, love of truth, honesty,
+and amiability--that all these may be wanting in a man who may yet be
+very learned." [102]
+
+When some one, in Sir Walter Scott's hearing, made a remark as to the
+value of literary talents and accomplishments, as if they were above all
+things to be esteemed and honoured, he observed, "God help us! what a
+poor world this would be if that were the true doctrine! I have read
+books enough, and observed and conversed with enough of eminent and
+splendidly-cultured minds, too, in my time; but I assure you, I have
+heard higher sentiments from the lips of poor UNEDUCATED men and women,
+when exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle heroism under difficulties
+and afflictions, or speaking their simple thoughts as to circumstances
+in the lot of friends and neighbours, than I ever yet met with out of
+the Bible. We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling
+and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider everything as
+moonshine, compared with the education of the heart." [103]
+
+Still less has wealth any necessary connection with elevation of
+character. On the contrary, it is much more frequently the cause of its
+corruption and degradation. Wealth and corruption, luxury and vice, have
+very close affinities to each other. Wealth, in the hands of men of weak
+purpose, of deficient self-control, or of ill-regulated passions,
+is only a temptation and a snare--the source, it may be, of infinite
+mischief to themselves, and often to others.
+
+On the contrary, a condition of comparative poverty is compatible with
+character in its highest form. A man may possess only his industry,
+his frugality, his integrity, and yet stand high in the rank of true
+manhood. The advice which Burns's father gave him was the best:
+
+   "He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne'er a farthing,
+   For without an honest manly heart no man was worth regarding."
+
+One of the purest and noblest characters the writer ever knew was
+a labouring man in a northern county, who brought up his family
+respectably on an income never amounting to more than ten shillings
+a week. Though possessed of only the rudiments of common education,
+obtained at an ordinary parish school, he was a man full of wisdom
+and thoughtfulness. His library consisted of the Bible, 'Flavel,' and
+'Boston'--books which, excepting the first, probably few readers
+have ever heard of. This good man might have sat for the portrait of
+Wordsworth's well-known 'Wanderer.' When he had lived his modest life
+of work and worship, and finally went to his rest, he left behind him
+a reputation for practical wisdom, for genuine goodness, and for
+helpfulness in every good work, which greater and richer men might have
+envied.
+
+When Luther died, he left behind him, as set forth in his will, "no
+ready money, no treasure of coin of any description." He was so poor
+at one part of his life, that he was under the necessity of earning his
+bread by turning, gardening, and clockmaking. Yet, at the very time when
+he was thus working with his hands, he was moulding the character of
+his country; and he was morally stronger, and vastly more honoured and
+followed, than all the princes of Germany.
+
+Character is property. It is the noblest of possessions. It is an estate
+in the general goodwill and respect of men; and they who invest in
+it--though they may not become rich in this world's goods--will find
+their reward in esteem and reputation fairly and honourably won. And it
+is right that in life good qualities should tell--that industry, virtue,
+and goodness should rank the highest--and that the really best men
+should be foremost.
+
+Simple honesty of purpose in a man goes a long way in life, if founded
+on a just estimate of himself and a steady obedience to the rule he
+knows and feels to be right. It holds a man straight, gives him strength
+and sustenance, and forms a mainspring of vigorous action. "No man,"
+once said Sir Benjamin Rudyard, "is bound to be rich or great,--no, nor
+to be wise; but every man is bound to be honest." [104]
+
+But the purpose, besides being honest, must be inspired by sound
+principles, and pursued with undeviating adherence to truth, integrity,
+and uprightness. Without principles, a man is like a ship without rudder
+or compass, left to drift hither and thither with every wind that blows.
+He is as one without law, or rule, or order, or government. "Moral
+principles," says Hume, "are social and universal. They form, in a
+manner, the PARTY of humankind against vice and disorder, its common
+enemy."
+
+Epictetus once received a visit from a certain magnificent orator going
+to Rome on a lawsuit, who wished to learn from the stoic something of
+his philosophy. Epictetus received his visitor coolly, not believing in
+his sincerity. "You will only criticise my style," said he; "not really
+wishing to learn principles."--"Well, but," said the orator, "if I
+attend to that sort of thing; I shall be a mere pauper, like you, with
+no plate, nor equipage, nor land."--"I don't WANT such things," replied
+Epictetus; "and besides, you are poorer than I am, after all. Patron or
+no patron, what care I? You DO care. I am richer than you. I don't care
+what Caesar thinks of me. I flatter no one. This is what I have, instead
+of your gold and silver plate. You have silver vessels, but earthenware
+reasons, principles, appetites. My mind to me a kingdom is, and it
+furnishes me with abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your restless
+idleness. All your possessions seem small to you; mine seem great to me.
+Your desire is insatiate--mine is satisfied." [105]
+
+Talent is by no means rare in the world; nor is even genius. But can the
+talent be trusted?--can the genius? Not unless based on truthfulness--on
+veracity. It is this quality more than any other that commands the
+esteem and respect, and secures the confidence of others. Truthfulness
+is at the foundation of all personal excellence. It exhibits itself in
+conduct. It is rectitude--truth in action, and shines through every word
+and deed. It means reliableness, and convinces other men that it can
+be trusted. And a man is already of consequence in the world when it is
+known that he can be relied on,--that when he says he knows a thing, he
+does know it,--that when he says he will do a thing, he can do, and
+does it. Thus reliableness becomes a passport to the general esteem and
+confidence of mankind.
+
+In the affairs of life or of business, it is not intellect that tells so
+much as character,--not brains so much as heart,--not genius so much
+as self-control, patience, and discipline, regulated by judgment. Hence
+there is no better provision for the uses of either private or public
+life, than a fair share of ordinary good sense guided by rectitude. Good
+sense, disciplined by experience and inspired by goodness, issues in
+practical wisdom. Indeed, goodness in a measure implies wisdom--the
+highest wisdom--the union of the worldly with the spiritual. "The
+correspondences of wisdom and goodness," says Sir Henry Taylor, "are
+manifold; and that they will accompany each other is to be inferred, not
+only because men's wisdom makes them good, but because their goodness
+makes them wise." [106]
+
+It is because of this controlling power of character in life that we
+often see men exercise an amount of influence apparently out of all
+proportion to their intellectual endowments. They appear to act by means
+of some latent power, some reserved force, which acts secretly, by mere
+presence. As Burke said of a powerful nobleman of the last century, "his
+virtues were his means." The secret is, that the aims of such men are
+felt to be pure and noble, and they act upon others with a constraining
+power.
+
+Though the reputation of men of genuine character may be of slow
+growth, their true qualities cannot be wholly concealed. They may be
+misrepresented by some, and misunderstood by others; misfortune
+and adversity may, for a time, overtake them but, with patience and
+endurance, they will eventually inspire the respect and command the
+confidence which they really deserve.
+
+It has been said of Sheridan that, had he possessed reliableness of
+character, he might have ruled the world; whereas, for want of it, his
+splendid gifts were comparatively useless. He dazzled and amused, but
+was without weight or influence in life or politics. Even the poor
+pantomimist of Drury Lane felt himself his superior. Thus, when Delpini
+one day pressed the manager for arrears of salary, Sheridan sharply
+reproved him, telling him he had forgotten his station. "No, indeed,
+Monsieur Sheridan, I have not," retorted Delpini; "I know the difference
+between us perfectly well. In birth, parentage, and education, you are
+superior to me; but in life, character, and behaviour, I am superior to
+you."
+
+Unlike Sheridan, Burke, his countryman, was a great man of character. He
+was thirty-five before he gained a seat in Parliament, yet he found time
+to carve his name deep in the political history of England. He was a
+man of great gifts, and of transcendent force of character. Yet he had a
+weakness, which proved a serious defect--it was his want of temper; his
+genius was sacrificed to his irritability. And without this apparently
+minor gift of temper, the most splendid endowments may be comparatively
+valueless to their possessor.
+
+Character is formed by a variety of minute circumstances, more or less
+under the regulation and control of the individual. Not a day passes
+without its discipline, whether for good or for evil. There is no act,
+however trivial, but has its train of consequences, as there is no
+hair so small but casts its shadow. It was a wise saying of Mrs.
+Schimmelpenninck's mother, never to give way to what is little; or
+by that little, however you may despise it, you will be practically
+governed.
+
+Every action, every thought, every feeling, contributes to the
+education of the temper, the habits, and understanding; and exercises
+an inevitable influence upon all the acts of our future life. Thus
+character is undergoing constant change, for better or for worse--either
+being elevated on the one hand, or degraded on the other. "There is no
+fault nor folly of my life," says Mr. Ruskin, "that does not rise up
+against me, and take away my joy, and shorten my power of possession, of
+sight, of understanding. And every past effort of my life, every gleam
+of rightness or good in it, is with me now, to help me in my grasp of
+this art and its vision." [107]
+
+The mechanical law, that action and reaction are equal, holds true also
+in morals. Good deeds act and react on the doers of them; and so do
+evil. Not only so: they produce like effects, by the influence of
+example, on those who are the subjects of them. But man is not the
+creature, so much as he is the creator, of circumstances: [108] and, by
+the exercise of his freewill, he can direct his actions so that they
+shall be productive of good rather than evil. "Nothing can work me
+damage but myself," said St. Bernard; "the harm that I sustain I carry
+about with me; and I am never a real sufferer but by my own fault."
+
+The best sort of character, however, cannot be formed without effort.
+There needs the exercise of constant self-watchfulness, self-discipline,
+and self-control. There may be much faltering, stumbling, and temporary
+defeat; difficulties and temptations manifold to be battled with and
+overcome; but if the spirit be strong and the heart be upright, no one
+need despair of ultimate success. The very effort to advance--to arrive
+at a higher standard of character than we have reached--is inspiring and
+invigorating; and even though we may fall short of it, we cannot fail to
+be improved by every, honest effort made in an upward direction.
+
+And with the light of great examples to guide us--representatives of
+humanity in its best forms--every one is not only justified, but bound
+in duty, to aim at reaching the highest standard of character: not to
+become the richest in means, but in spirit; not the greatest in worldly
+position, but in true honour; not the most intellectual, but the most
+virtuous; not the most powerful and influential, but the most truthful,
+upright, and honest.
+
+It was very characteristic of the late Prince Consort--a man himself of
+the purest mind, who powerfully impressed and influenced others by the
+sheer force of his own benevolent nature--when drawing up the conditions
+of the annual prize to be given by Her Majesty at Wellington College,
+to determine that it should be awarded, not to the cleverest boy, nor
+to the most bookish boy, nor to the most precise, diligent, and prudent
+boy,--but to the noblest boy, to the boy who should show the most
+promise of becoming a large-hearted, high-motived man. [109]
+
+Character exhibits itself in conduct, guided and inspired by principle,
+integrity, and practical wisdom. In its highest form, it is the
+individual will acting energetically under the influence of religion,
+morality, and reason. It chooses its way considerately, and pursues
+it steadfastly; esteeming duty above reputation, and the approval
+of conscience more than the world's praise. While respecting the
+personality of others, it preserves its own individuality and
+independence; and has the courage to be morally honest, though it may be
+unpopular, trusting tranquilly to time and experience for recognition.
+
+Although the force of example will always exercise great influence upon
+the formation of character, the self-originating and sustaining force of
+one's own spirit must be the mainstay. This alone can hold up the life,
+and give individual independence and energy. "Unless man can erect
+himself above himself," said Daniel, a poet of the Elizabethan era, "how
+poor a thing is man!" Without a certain degree of practical efficient
+force--compounded of will, which is the root, and wisdom, which is the
+stem of character--life will be indefinite and purposeless--like a body
+of stagnant water, instead of a running stream doing useful work and
+keeping the machinery of a district in motion.
+
+When the elements of character are brought into action by determinate
+will, and, influenced by high purpose, man enters upon and courageously
+perseveres in the path of duty, at whatever cost of worldly interest,
+he may be said to approach the summit of his being. He then exhibits
+character in its most intrepid form, and embodies the highest idea of
+manliness. The acts of such a man become repeated in the life and action
+of others. His very words live and become actions. Thus every word of
+Luther's rang through Germany like a trumpet. As Richter said of him,
+"His words were half-battles." And thus Luther's life became transfused
+into the life of his country, and still lives in the character of modern
+Germany.
+
+On the other hand, energy, without integrity and a soul of goodness,
+may only represent the embodied principle of evil. It is observed by
+Novalis, in his 'Thoughts on Morals,' that the ideal of moral perfection
+has no more dangerous rival to contend with than the ideal of the
+highest strength and the most energetic life, the maximum of the
+barbarian--which needs only a due admixture of pride, ambition, and
+selfishness, to be a perfect ideal of the devil. Amongst men of
+such stamp are found the greatest scourges and devastators of the
+world--those elect scoundrels whom Providence, in its inscrutable
+designs, permits to fulfil their mission of destruction upon earth. [1010]
+
+Very different is the man of energetic character inspired by a noble
+spirit, whose actions are governed by rectitude, and the law of whose
+life is duty. He is just and upright,--in his business dealings, in his
+public action, and in his family life--justice being as essential in the
+government of a home as of a nation. He will be honest in all things--in
+his words and in his work. He will be generous and merciful to his
+opponents, as well as to those who are weaker than himself. It was truly
+said of Sheridan--who, with all his improvidence, was generous, and
+never gave pain--that,
+
+     "His wit in the combat, as gentle as bright,
+     Never carried a heart-stain away on its blade."
+
+Such also was the character of Fox, who commanded the affection and
+service of others by his uniform heartiness and sympathy. He was a man
+who could always be most easily touched on the side of his honour.
+Thus, the story is told of a tradesman calling upon him one day for the
+payment of a promissory note which he presented. Fox was engaged at the
+time in counting out gold. The tradesman asked to be paid from the money
+before him. "No," said Fox, "I owe this money to Sheridan; it is a debt
+of honour; if any accident happened to me, he would have nothing
+to show." "Then," said the tradesman, "I change MY debt into one of
+honour;" and he tore up the note. Fox was conquered by the act: he
+thanked the man for his confidence, and paid him, saying, "Then Sheridan
+must wait; yours is the debt of older standing."
+
+The man of character is conscientious. He puts his conscience into his
+work, into his words, into his every action. When Cromwell asked the
+Parliament for soldiers in lieu of the decayed serving-men and tapsters
+who filled the Commonwealth's army, he required that they should be men
+"who made some conscience of what they did;" and such were the men of
+which his celebrated regiment of "Ironsides" was composed.
+
+The man of character is also reverential. The possession of this quality
+marks the noblest, and highest type of manhood and womanhood: reverence
+for things consecrated by the homage of generations--for high objects,
+pure thoughts, and noble aims--for the great men of former times, and
+the highminded workers amongst our contemporaries. Reverence is alike
+indispensable to the happiness of individuals, of families, and of
+nations. Without it there can be no trust, no faith, no confidence,
+either in man or God--neither social peace nor social progress. For
+reverence is but another word for religion, which binds men to each
+other, and all to God.
+
+"The man of noble spirit," says Sir Thomas Overbury, "converts all
+occurrences into experience, between which experience and his reason
+there is marriage, and the issue are his actions. He moves by affection,
+not for affection; he loves glory, scorns shame, and governeth and
+obeyeth with one countenance, for it comes from one consideration.
+Knowing reason to be no idle gift of nature, he is the steersman of his
+own destiny. Truth is his goddess, and he takes pains to get her, not
+to look like her. Unto the society of men he is a sun, whose clearness
+directs their steps in a regular motion. He is the wise man's friend,
+the example of the indifferent, the medicine of the vicious. Thus time
+goeth not from him, but with him, and he feels age more by the strength
+of his soul than by the weakness of his body. Thus feels he no pain, but
+esteems all such things as friends, that desire to file off his fetters,
+and help him out of prison." [1011]
+
+Energy of will--self-originating force--is the soul of every great
+character. Where it is, there is life; where it is not, there is
+faintness, helplessness, and despondency. "The strong man and the
+waterfall," says the proverb, "channel their own path." The energetic
+leader of noble spirit not only wins a way for himself, but carries
+others with him. His every act has a personal significance, indicating
+vigour, independence, and self-reliance, and unconsciously commands
+respect, admiration, and homage. Such intrepidity of character
+characterised Luther, Cromwell, Washington, Pitt, Wellington, and all
+great leaders of men.
+
+"I am convinced," said Mr. Gladstone, in describing the qualities of
+the late Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons, shortly after his
+death--"I am convinced that it was the force of will, a sense of duty,
+and a determination not to give in, that enabled him to make himself
+a model for all of us who yet remain and follow him, with feeble and
+unequal steps, in the discharge of our duties; it was that force of will
+that in point of fact did not so much struggle against the infirmities
+of old age, but actually repelled them and kept them at a distance. And
+one other quality there is, at least, that may be noticed without the
+smallest risk of stirring in any breast a painful emotion. It is this,
+that Lord Palmerston had a nature incapable of enduring anger or any
+sentiment of wrath. This freedom from wrathful sentiment was not the
+result of painful effort, but the spontaneous fruit of the mind. It was
+a noble gift of his original nature--a gift which beyond all others it
+was delightful to observe, delightful also to remember in connection
+with him who has left us, and with whom we have no longer to do, except
+in endeavouring to profit by his example wherever it can lead us in the
+path of duty and of right, and of bestowing on him those tributes of
+admiration and affection which he deserves at our hands."
+
+The great leader attracts to himself men of kindred character, drawing
+them towards him as the loadstone draws iron. Thus, Sir John Moore early
+distinguished the three brothers Napier from the crowd of officers by
+whom he was surrounded, and they, on their part, repaid him by their
+passionate admiration. They were captivated by his courtesy, his
+bravery, and his lofty disinterestedness; and he became the model
+whom they resolved to imitate, and, if possible, to emulate. "Moore's
+influence," says the biographer of Sir William Napier, "had a signal
+effect in forming and maturing their characters; and it is no small
+glory to have been the hero of those three men, while his early
+discovery of their mental and moral qualities is a proof of Moore's own
+penetration and judgment of character."
+
+There is a contagiousness in every example of energetic conduct. The
+brave man is an inspiration to the weak, and compels them, as it were,
+to follow him. Thus Napier relates that at the combat of Vera, when
+the Spanish centre was broken and in flight, a young officer, named
+Havelock, sprang forward, and, waving his hat, called upon the Spaniards
+within sight to follow him. Putting spurs to his horse, he leapt the
+abbatis which protected the French front, and went headlong against
+them. The Spaniards were electrified; in a moment they dashed after him,
+cheering for "EL CHICO BLANCO!" [10the fair boy], and with one shock they
+broke through the French and sent them flying downhill. [1012]
+
+And so it is in ordinary life. The good and the great draw others
+after them; they lighten and lift up all who are within reach of their
+influence. They are as so many living centres of beneficent activity.
+Let a man of energetic and upright character be appointed to a position
+of trust and authority, and all who serve under him become, as it were,
+conscious of an increase of power. When Chatham was appointed minister,
+his personal influence was at once felt through all the ramifications
+of office. Every sailor who served under Nelson, and knew he was in
+command, shared the inspiration of the hero.
+
+When Washington consented to act as commander-in-chief, it was felt as
+if the strength of the American forces had been more than doubled. Many
+years late; in 1798, when Washington, grown old, had withdrawn from
+public life and was living in retirement at Mount Vernon, and when it
+seemed probable that France would declare war against the United States,
+President Adams wrote to him, saying, "We must have your name, if you
+will permit us to use it; there will be more efficacy in it than in
+many an army." Such was the esteem in which the great President's noble
+character and eminent abilities were held by his countrymen! [1013]
+
+An incident is related by the historian of the Peninsular War,
+illustrative of the personal influence exercised by a great commander
+over his followers. The British army lay at Sauroren, before which Soult
+was advancing, prepared to attack, in force. Wellington was absent, and
+his arrival was anxiously looked for. Suddenly a single horseman was
+seen riding up the mountain alone. It was the Duke, about to join his
+troops. One of Campbell's Portuguese battalions first descried him,
+and raised a joyful cry; then the shrill clamour, caught up by the next
+regiment, soon swelled as it ran along the line into that appalling
+shout which the British soldier is wont to give upon the edge of
+battle, and which no enemy ever heard unmoved. Suddenly he stopped at a
+conspicuous point, for he desired both armies should know he was there,
+and a double spy who was present pointed out Soult, who was so near that
+his features could be distinguished. Attentively Wellington fixed his
+eyes on that formidable man, and, as if speaking to himself, he said:
+"Yonder is a great commander; but he is cautious, and will delay his
+attack to ascertain the cause of those cheers; that will give time for
+the Sixth Division to arrive, and I shall beat him"--which he did. [1014]
+
+In some cases, personal character acts by a kind of talismanic
+influence, as if certain men were the organs of a sort of supernatural
+force. "If I but stamp on the ground in Italy," said Pompey, "an army
+will appear." At the voice of Peter the Hermit, as described by the
+historian, "Europe arose, and precipitated itself upon Asia." It was
+said of the Caliph Omar that his walking-stick struck more terror into
+those who saw it than another man's sword. The very names of some men
+are like the sound of a trumpet. When the Douglas lay mortally wounded
+on the field of Otterburn, he ordered his name to be shouted still
+louder than before, saying there was a tradition in his family that a
+dead Douglas should win a battle. His followers, inspired by the sound,
+gathered fresh courage, rallied, and conquered; and thus, in the words
+of the Scottish poet:--
+
+"The Douglas dead, his name hath won the field." [1015]
+
+There have been some men whose greatest conquests have been achieved
+after they themselves were dead. "Never," says Michelet, "was Caesar
+more alive, more powerful, more terrible, than when his old and worn-out
+body, his withered corpse, lay pierced with blows; he appeared
+then purified, redeemed,--that which he had been, despite his many
+stains--the man of humanity." [1016] Never did the great character of
+William of Orange, surnamed the Silent, exercise greater power over his
+countrymen than after his assassination at Delft by the emissary of the
+Jesuits. On the very day of his murder the Estates of Holland resolved
+"to maintain the good cause, with God's help, to the uttermost, without
+sparing gold or blood;" and they kept their word.
+
+The same illustration applies to all history and morals. The career of
+a great man remains an enduring monument of human energy. The man
+dies and disappears; but his thoughts and acts survive, and leave
+an indelible stamp upon his race. And thus the spirit of his life is
+prolonged and perpetuated, moulding the thought and will, and thereby
+contributing to form the character of the future. It is the men that
+advance in the highest and best directions, who are the true beacons of
+human progress. They are as lights set upon a hill, illumining the moral
+atmosphere around them; and the light of their spirit continues to shine
+upon all succeeding generations.
+
+It is natural to admire and revere really great men. They hallow the
+nation to which they belong, and lift up not only all who live in their
+time, but those who live after them. Their great example becomes the
+common heritage of their race; and their great deeds and great thoughts
+are the most glorious of legacies to mankind. They connect the present
+with the past, and help on the increasing purpose of the future; holding
+aloft the standard of principle, maintaining the dignity of human
+character, and filling the mind with traditions and instincts of all
+that is most worthy and noble in life.
+
+Character, embodied in thought and deed, is of the nature of
+immortality. The solitary thought of a great thinker will dwell in the
+minds of men for centuries until at length it works itself into their
+daily life and practice. It lives on through the ages, speaking as a
+voice from the dead, and influencing minds living thousands of years
+apart. Thus, Moses and David and Solomon, Plato and Socrates and
+Xenophon, Seneca and Cicero and Epictetus, still speak to us as from
+their tombs. They still arrest the attention, and exercise an influence
+upon character, though their thoughts be conveyed in languages unspoken
+by them and in their time unknown. Theodore Parker has said that a
+single man like Socrates was worth more to a country than many such
+states as South Carolina; that if that state went out of the world
+to-day, she would not have done so much for the world as Socrates. [1017]
+
+Great workers and great thinkers are the true makers of history, which
+is but continuous humanity influenced by men of character--by great
+leaders, kings, priests, philosophers, statesmen, and patriots--the
+true aristocracy of man. Indeed, Mr. Carlyle has broadly stated that
+Universal History is, at bottom, but the history of Great Men. They
+certainly mark and designate the epochs of national life. Their
+influence is active, as well as reactive. Though their mind is, in a
+measure; the product of their age, the public mind is also, to a
+great extent, their creation. Their individual action identifies the
+cause--the institution. They think great thoughts, cast them abroad,
+and the thoughts make events. Thus the early Reformers initiated the
+Reformation, and with it the liberation of modern thought. Emerson has
+said that every institution is to be regarded as but the lengthened
+shadow of some great man: as Islamism of Mahomet, Puritanism of Calvin,
+Jesuitism of Loyola, Quakerism of Fox, Methodism of Wesley, Abolitionism
+of Clarkson.
+
+Great men stamp their mind upon their age and nation--as Luther did upon
+modern Germany, and Knox upon Scotland. [1018] And if there be one man
+more than another that stamped his mind on modern Italy, it was Dante.
+During the long centuries of Italian degradation his burning words were
+as a watchfire and a beacon to all true men. He was the herald of his
+nation's liberty--braving persecution, exile, and death, for the love
+of it. He was always the most national of the Italian poets, the most
+loved, the most read. From the time of his death all educated Italians
+had his best passages by heart; and the sentiments they enshrined
+inspired their lives, and eventually influenced the history of their
+nation. "The Italians," wrote Byron in 1821, "talk Dante, write Dante,
+and think and dream Dante, at this moment, to an excess which would be
+ridiculous, but that he deserves their admiration." [1019]
+
+A succession of variously gifted men in different ages--extending from
+Alfred to Albert--has in like manner contributed, by their life and
+example, to shape the multiform character of England. Of these, probably
+the most influential were the men of the Elizabethan and Cromwellian,
+and the intermediate periods--amongst which we find the great names of
+Shakspeare, Raleigh, Burleigh, Sidney, Bacon, Milton, Herbert, Hampden,
+Pym, Eliot, Vane, Cromwell, and many more--some of them men of great
+force, and others of great dignity and purity of character. The lives of
+such men have become part of the public life of England, and their deeds
+and thoughts are regarded as among the most cherished bequeathments from
+the past.
+
+So Washington left behind him, as one of the greatest treasures of his
+country, the example of a stainless life--of a great, honest, pure, and
+noble character--a model for his nation to form themselves by in all
+time to come. And in the case of Washington, as in so many other great
+leaders of men, his greatness did not so much consist in his intellect,
+his skill, and his genius, as in his honour, his integrity, his
+truthfulness, his high and controlling sense of duty--in a word, in his
+genuine nobility of character.
+
+Men such as these are the true lifeblood of the country to which they
+belong. They elevate and uphold it, fortify and ennoble it, and shed
+a glory over it by the example of life and character which they have
+bequeathed. "The names and memories of great men," says an able writer,
+"are the dowry of a nation. Widowhood, overthrow, desertion, even
+slavery, cannot take away from her this sacred inheritance.... Whenever
+national life begins to quicken.... the dead heroes rise in the memories
+of men, and appear to the living to stand by in solemn spectatorship and
+approval. No country can be lost which feels herself overlooked by such
+glorious witnesses. They are the salt of the earth, in death as well as
+in life. What they did once, their descendants have still and always
+a right to do after them; and their example lives in their country, a
+continual stimulant and encouragement for him who has the soul to adopt
+it." [1020]
+
+But it is not great men only that have to be taken into account in
+estimating the qualities of a nation, but the character that pervades
+the great body of the people. When Washington Irving visited Abbotsford,
+Sir Walter Scott introduced him to many of his friends and favourites,
+not only amongst the neighbouring farmers, but the labouring peasantry.
+"I wish to show you," said Scott, "some of our really excellent plain
+Scotch people. The character of a nation is not to be learnt from its
+fine folks, its fine gentlemen and ladies; such you meet everywhere,
+and they are everywhere the same." While statesmen, philosophers, and
+divines represent the thinking power of society, the men who found
+industries and carve out new careers, as well as the common body of
+working-people, from whom the national strength and spirit are from
+time to time recruited, must necessarily furnish the vital force and
+constitute the real backbone of every nation.
+
+Nations have their character to maintain as well as individuals;
+and under constitutional governments--where all classes more or less
+participate in the exercise of political power--the national character
+will necessarily depend more upon the moral qualities of the many than
+of the few. And the same qualities which determine the character of
+individuals, also determine the character of nations. Unless they are
+highminded, truthful, honest, virtuous, and courageous, they will be
+held in light esteem by other nations, and be without weight in
+the world. To have character, they must needs also be reverential,
+disciplined, self-controlling, and devoted to duty. The nation that has
+no higher god than pleasure, or even dollars or calico, must needs be in
+a poor way. It were better to revert to Homer's gods than be devoted to
+these; for the heathen deities at least imaged human virtues, and were
+something to look up to.
+
+As for institutions, however good in themselves, they will avail but
+little in maintaining the standard of national character. It is the
+individual men, and the spirit which actuates them, that determine the
+moral standing and stability of nations. Government, in the long run, is
+usually no better than the people governed. Where the mass is sound in
+conscience, morals, and habit, the nation will be ruled honestly and
+nobly. But where they are corrupt, self-seeking, and dishonest in heart,
+bound neither by truth nor by law, the rule of rogues and wirepullers
+becomes inevitable.
+
+The only true barrier against the despotism of public opinion, whether
+it be of the many or of the few, is enlightened individual freedom and
+purity of personal character. Without these there can be no vigorous
+manhood, no true liberty in a nation. Political rights, however broadly
+framed, will not elevate a people individually depraved. Indeed, the
+more complete a system of popular suffrage, and the more perfect its
+protection, the more completely will the real character of a people
+be reflected, as by a mirror, in their laws and government. Political
+morality can never have any solid existence on a basis of individual
+immorality. Even freedom, exercised by a debased people, would come
+to be regarded as a nuisance, and liberty of the press but a vent for
+licentiousness and moral abomination.
+
+Nations, like individuals, derive support and strength from the feeling
+that they belong to an illustrious race, that they are the heirs of
+their greatness, and ought to be the perpetuators of their glory. It is
+of momentous importance that a nation should have a great past [1021]
+to look back upon. It steadies the life of the present, elevates and
+upholds it, and lightens and lifts it up, by the memory of the great
+deeds, the noble sufferings, and the valorous achievements of the men of
+old. The life of nations, as of men, is a great treasury of experience,
+which, wisely used, issues in social progress and improvement; or,
+misused, issues in dreams, delusions, and failure. Like men, nations are
+purified and strengthened by trials. Some of the most glorious chapters
+in their history are those containing the record of the sufferings by
+means of which their character has been developed. Love of liberty and
+patriotic feeling may have done much, but trial and suffering nobly
+borne more than all.
+
+A great deal of what passes by the name of patriotism in these days
+consists of the merest bigotry and narrow-mindedness; exhibiting itself
+in national prejudice, national conceit, amid national hatred. It does
+not show itself in deeds, but in boastings--in howlings, gesticulations,
+and shrieking helplessly for help--in flying flags and singing
+songs--and in perpetual grinding at the hurdy-gurdy of long-dead
+grievances and long-remedied wrongs. To be infested by SUCH a patriotism
+as this is, perhaps, amongst the greatest curses that can befall any
+country.
+
+But as there is an ignoble, so is there a noble patriotism--the
+patriotism that invigorates and elevates a country by noble work--that
+does its duty truthfully and manfully--that lives an honest, sober, and
+upright life, and strives to make the best use of the opportunities for
+improvement that present themselves on every side; and at the same time
+a patriotism that cherishes the memory and example of the great men of
+old, who, by their sufferings in the cause of religion or of freedom,
+have won for themselves a deathless glory, and for their nation those
+privileges of free life and free institutions of which they are the
+inheritors and possessors.
+
+Nations are not to be judged by their size any more than individuals:
+
+    "it is not growing like a tree
+    In bulk, doth make Man better be."
+
+For a nation to be great, it need not necessarily be big, though bigness
+is often confounded with greatness. A nation may be very big in point of
+territory and population and yet be devoid of true greatness. The people
+of Israel were a small people, yet what a great life they developed,
+and how powerful the influence they have exercised on the destinies of
+mankind! Greece was not big: the entire population of Attica was less
+than that of South Lancashire. Athens was less populous than New York;
+and yet how great it was in art, in literature, in philosophy, and in
+patriotism! [1022]
+
+But it was the fatal weakness of Athens that its citizens had no true
+family or home life, while its freemen were greatly outnumbered by its
+slaves. Its public men were loose, if not corrupt, in morals. Its
+women, even the most accomplished, were unchaste. Hence its fall became
+inevitable, and was even more sudden than its rise.
+
+In like manner the decline and fall of Rome was attributable to the
+general corruption of its people, and to their engrossing love of
+pleasure and idleness--work, in the later days of Rome, being regarded
+only as fit for slaves. Its citizens ceased to pride themselves on the
+virtues of character of their great forefathers; and the empire fell
+because it did not deserve to live. And so the nations that are idle and
+luxurious--that "will rather lose a pound of blood," as old Burton says,
+"in a single combat, than a drop of sweat in any honest labour"--must
+inevitably die out, and laborious energetic nations take their place.
+
+When Louis XIV. asked Colbert how it was that, ruling so great and
+populous a country as France, he had been unable to conquer so small a
+country as Holland, the minister replied: "Because, Sire, the greatness
+of a country does not depend upon the extent of its territory, but
+on the character of its people. It is because of the industry, the
+frugality, and the energy of the Dutch that your Majesty has found them
+so difficult to overcome."
+
+It is also related of Spinola and Richardet, the ambassadors sent by the
+King of Spain to negotiate a treaty at the Hague in 1608, that one day
+they saw some eight or ten persons land from a little boat, and, sitting
+down upon the grass, proceed to make a meal of bread-and-cheese and
+beer. "Who are those travellers?" asked the ambassadors of a peasant.
+"These are worshipful masters, the deputies from the States," was his
+reply. Spinola at once whispered to his companion, "We must make peace:
+these are not men to be conquered."
+
+In fine, stability of institutions must depend upon stability of
+character. Any number of depraved units cannot form a great nation.
+The people may seem to be highly civilised, and yet be ready to fall
+to pieces at first touch of adversity. Without integrity of individual
+character, they can have no real strength, cohesion, soundness. They may
+be rich, polite, and artistic; and yet hovering on the brink of ruin.
+If living for themselves only, and with no end but pleasure--each little
+self his own little god--such a nation is doomed, and its decay is
+inevitable.
+
+Where national character ceases to be upheld, a nation may be regarded
+as next to lost. Where it ceases to esteem and to practise the virtues
+of truthfulness, honesty, integrity, and justice, it does not deserve
+to live. And when the time arrives in any country when wealth has so
+corrupted, or pleasure so depraved, or faction so infatuated the people,
+that honour, order, obedience, virtue, and loyalty have seemingly become
+things of the past; then, amidst the darkness, when honest men--if,
+haply, there be such left--are groping about and feeling for each
+other's hands, their only remaining hope will be in the restoration and
+elevation of Individual Character; for by that alone can a nation be
+saved; and if character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be
+nothing left worth saving.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--HOME POWER.
+
+
+
+        "So build we up the being that we are,
+         Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things,
+         We shall be wise perforce."  WORDSWORTH.
+
+    "The millstreams that turn the clappers of the world
+     arise in solitary places."--HELPS.
+
+     "In the course of a conversation with Madame Campan,
+     Napoleon Buonaparte remarked: 'The old systems of
+     instruction seem to be worth nothing; what is yet wanting in
+     order that the people should be properly educated?'
+     'MOTHERS,' replied Madame Campan. The reply struck the
+     Emperor. 'Yes!' said he 'here is a system of education in
+     one word. Be it your care, then, to train up mothers who
+     shall know how to educate their children.'"--AIME MARTIN.
+
+        "Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round!
+          Parents first season us.  Then schoolmasters
+         Deliver us to laws.  They send us bound
+          To rules of reason."--GEORGE HERBERT.
+
+
+HOME is the first and most important school of character. It is there
+that every human being receives his best moral training, or his worst;
+for it is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which endure
+through manhood, and cease only with life.
+
+It is a common saying that "Manners make the man;" and there is a
+second, that "Mind makes the man;" but truer than either is a third,
+that "Home makes the man." For the home-training includes not only
+manners and mind, but character. It is mainly in the home that the
+heart is opened, the habits are formed, the intellect is awakened, and
+character moulded for good or for evil.
+
+From that source, be it pure or impure, issue the principles and maxims
+that govern society. Law itself is but the reflex of homes. The tiniest
+bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards
+issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations
+are gathered out of nurseries, and they who hold the leading-strings
+of children may even exercise a greater power than those who wield the
+reins of government. [111]
+
+It is in the order of nature that domestic life should be preparatory
+to social, and that the mind and character should first be formed in the
+home. There the individuals who afterwards form society are dealt with
+in detail, and fashioned one by one. From the family they enter life,
+and advance from boyhood to citizenship. Thus the home may be regarded
+as the most influential school of civilisation. For, after all,
+civilisation mainly resolves itself into a question of individual
+training; and according as the respective members of society are well
+or ill-trained in youth, so will the community which they constitute be
+more or less humanised and civilised.
+
+The training of any man, even the wisest, cannot fail to be powerfully
+influenced by the moral surroundings of his early years. He comes into
+the world helpless, and absolutely dependent upon those about him for
+nurture and culture. From the very first breath that he draws, his
+education begins. When a mother once asked a clergyman when she should
+begin the education of her child, then four years old, he replied:
+"Madam, if you have not begun already, you have lost those four
+years. From the first smile that gleams upon an infant's cheek, your
+opportunity begins."
+
+But even in this case the education had already begun; for the child
+learns by simple imitation, without effort, almost through the pores of
+the skin. "A figtree looking on a figtree becometh fruitful," says
+the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children; their first great
+instructor is example.
+
+However apparently trivial the influences which contribute to form the
+character of the child, they endure through life. The child's character
+is the nucleus of the man's; all after-education is but superposition;
+the form of the crystal remains the same. Thus the saying of the poet
+holds true in a large degree, "The child is father of the man;" or, as
+Milton puts it, "The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day."
+Those impulses to conduct which last the longest and are rooted the
+deepest, always have their origin near our birth. It is then that
+the germs of virtues or vices, of feelings or sentiments, are first
+implanted which determine the character for life.
+
+The child is, as it were, laid at the gate of a new world, and opens
+his eyes upon things all of which are full of novelty and wonderment. At
+first it is enough for him to gaze; but by-and-by he begins to see, to
+observe, to compare, to learn, to store up impressions and ideas; and
+under wise guidance the progress which he makes is really wonderful.
+Lord Brougham has observed that between the ages of eighteen and thirty
+months, a child learns more of the material world, of his own powers,
+of the nature of other bodies, and even of his own mind and other minds,
+than he acquires in all the rest of his life. The knowledge which a
+child accumulates, and the ideas generated in his mind, during this
+period, are so important, that if we could imagine them to be afterwards
+obliterated, all the learning of a senior wrangler at Cambridge, or a
+first-classman at Oxford, would be as nothing to it, and would literally
+not enable its object to prolong his existence for a week.
+
+It is in childhood that the mind is most open to impressions, and ready
+to be kindled by the first spark that falls into it. Ideas are then
+caught quickly and live lastingly. Thus Scott is said to have received,
+his first bent towards ballad literature from his mother's and
+grandmother's recitations in his hearing long before he himself
+had learned to read. Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in
+after-life the images first presented to it. The first thing continues
+for ever with the child. The first joy, the first sorrow, the
+first success, the first failure, the first achievement, the first
+misadventure, paint the foreground of his life.
+
+All this while, too, the training of the character is in progress--of
+the temper, the will, and the habits--on which so much of the happiness
+of human beings in after-life depends. Although man is endowed with
+a certain self-acting, self-helping power of contributing to his own
+development, independent of surrounding circumstances, and of reacting
+upon the life around him, the bias given to his moral character in early
+life is of immense importance. Place even the highest-minded philosopher
+in the midst of daily discomfort, immorality, and vileness, and he will
+insensibly gravitate towards brutality. How much more susceptible is the
+impressionable and helpless child amidst such surroundings! It is not
+possible to rear a kindly nature, sensitive to evil, pure in mind and
+heart, amidst coarseness, discomfort, and impurity.
+
+Thus homes, which are the nurseries of children who grow up into men
+and women, will be good or bad according to the power that governs them.
+Where the spirit of love and duty pervades the home--where head and
+heart bear rule wisely there--where the daily life is honest and
+virtuous--where the government is sensible, kind, and loving, then
+may we expect from such a home an issue of healthy, useful, and happy
+beings, capable, as they gain the requisite strength, of following the
+footsteps of their parents, of walking uprightly, governing themselves
+wisely, and contributing to the welfare of those about them.
+
+On the other hand, if surrounded by ignorance, coarseness, and
+selfishness, they will unconsciously assume the same character, and
+grow up to adult years rude, uncultivated, and all the more dangerous
+to society if placed amidst the manifold temptations of what is called
+civilised life. "Give your child to be educated by a slave," said an
+ancient Greek, "and instead of one slave, you will then have two."
+
+The child cannot help imitating what he sees. Everything is to him a
+model--of manner, of gesture, of speech, of habit, of character. "For
+the child," says Richter, "the most important era of life is that of
+childhood, when he begins to colour and mould himself by companionship
+with others. Every new educator effects less than his predecessor;
+until at last, if we regard all life as an educational institution, a
+circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations
+he has seen than by his nurse." [112] Models are therefore of every
+importance in moulding the nature of the child; and if we would have
+fine characters, we must necessarily present before them fine models.
+Now, the model most constantly before every child's eye is the Mother.
+
+One good mother, said George Herbert, is worth a hundred schoolmasters.
+In the home she is "loadstone to all hearts, and loadstar to all eyes."
+Imitation of her is constant--imitation, which Bacon likens to "a globe
+of precepts." But example is far more than precept. It is instruction
+in action. It is teaching without words, often exemplifying more than
+tongue can teach. In the face of bad example, the best of precepts are
+of but little avail. The example is followed, not the precepts. Indeed,
+precept at variance with practice is worse than useless, inasmuch as
+it only serves to teach the most cowardly of vices--hypocrisy. Even
+children are judges of consistency, and the lessons of the parent who
+says one thing and does the opposite, are quickly seen through. The
+teaching of the friar was not worth much, who preached the virtue of
+honesty with a stolen goose in his sleeve.
+
+By imitation of acts, the character becomes slowly and imperceptibly,
+but at length decidedly formed. The several acts may seem in themselves
+trivial; but so are the continuous acts of daily life. Like snowflakes,
+they fall unperceived; each flake added to the pile produces no
+sensible change, and yet the accumulation of snowflakes makes the
+avalanche. So do repeated acts, one following another, at length become
+consolidated in habit, determine the action of the human being for good
+or for evil, and, in a word, form the character.
+
+It is because the mother, far more than the father, influences the
+action and conduct of the child, that her good example is of so much
+greater importance in the home. It is easy to understand how this should
+be so. The home is the woman's domain--her kingdom, where she exercises
+entire control. Her power over the little subjects she rules there is
+absolute. They look up to her for everything. She is the example and
+model constantly before their eyes, whom they unconsciously observe and
+imitate.
+
+Cowley, speaking of the influence of early example, and ideas early
+implanted in the mind, compares them to letters cut in the bark of a
+young tree, which grow and widen with age. The impressions then made,
+howsoever slight they may seem, are never effaced. The ideas then
+implanted in the mind are like seeds dropped into the ground, which
+lie there and germinate for a time, afterwards springing up in acts and
+thoughts and habits. Thus the mother lives again in her children.
+They unconsciously mould themselves after her manner, her speech, her
+conduct, and her method of life. Her habits become theirs; and her
+character is visibly repeated in them.
+
+This maternal love is the visible providence of our race. Its influence
+is constant and universal. It begins with the education of the human
+being at the out-start of life, and is prolonged by virtue of the
+powerful influence which every good mother exercises over her children
+through life. When launched into the world, each to take part in its
+labours, anxieties, and trials, they still turn to their mother
+for consolation, if not for counsel, in their time of trouble and
+difficulty. The pure and good thoughts she has implanted in their minds
+when children, continue to grow up into good acts, long after she is
+dead; and when there is nothing but a memory of her left, her children
+rise up and call her blessed.
+
+It is not saying too much to aver that the happiness or misery, the
+enlightenment or ignorance, the civilisation or barbarism of the world,
+depends in a very high degree upon the exercise of woman's power within
+her special kingdom of home. Indeed, Emerson says, broadly and truly,
+that "a sufficient measure of civilisation is the influence of good
+women." Posterity may be said to lie before us in the person of the
+child in the mother's lap. What that child will eventually become,
+mainly depends upon the training and example which he has received from
+his first and most influential educator.
+
+Woman, above all other educators, educates humanly. Man is the brain,
+but woman is the heart of humanity; he its judgment, she its feeling;
+he its strength, she its grace, ornament, and solace. Even the
+understanding of the best woman seems to work mainly through her
+affections. And thus, though man may direct the intellect, woman
+cultivates the feelings, which mainly determine the character. While he
+fills the memory, she occupies the heart. She makes us love what he can
+only make us believe, and it is chiefly through her that we are enabled
+to arrive at virtue.
+
+The respective influences of the father and the mother on the training
+and development of character, are remarkably illustrated in the life
+of St. Augustine. While Augustine's father, a poor freeman of Thagaste,
+proud of his son's abilities, endeavoured to furnish his mind with the
+highest learning of the schools, and was extolled by his neighbours
+for the sacrifices he made with that object "beyond the ability of his
+means"--his mother Monica, on the other hand, sought to lead her
+son's mind in the direction of the highest good, and with pious care
+counselled him, entreated him, advised him to chastity, and, amidst much
+anguish and tribulation, because of his wicked life, never ceased to
+pray for him until her prayers were heard and answered. Thus her love
+at last triumphed, and the patience and goodness of the mother were
+rewarded, not only by the conversion of her gifted son, but also of her
+husband. Later in life, and after her husband's death, Monica, drawn by
+her affection, followed her son to Milan, to watch over him; and there
+she died, when he was in his thirty-third year. But it was in the
+earlier period of his life that her example and instruction made the
+deepest impression upon his mind, and determined his future character.
+
+There are many similar instances of early impressions made upon a
+child's mind, springing up into good acts late in life, after an
+intervening period of selfishness and vice. Parents may do all that they
+can to develope an upright and virtuous character in their children, and
+apparently in vain. It seems like bread cast upon the waters and lost.
+And yet sometimes it happens that long after the parents have gone to
+their Rest--it may be twenty years or more--the good precept, the good
+example set before their sons and daughters in childhood, at length
+springs up and bears fruit.
+
+One of the most remarkable of such instances was that of the Reverend
+John Newton of Olney, the friend of Cowper the poet. It was long
+subsequent to the death of both his parents, and after leading a vicious
+life as a youth and as a seaman, that he became suddenly awakened to
+a sense of his depravity; and then it was that the lessons which his
+mother had given him when a child sprang up vividly in his memory. Her
+voice came to him as it were from the dead, and led him gently back to
+virtue and goodness.
+
+Another instance is that of John Randolph, the American statesman, who
+once said: "I should have been an atheist if it had not been for one
+recollection--and that was the memory of the time when my departed
+mother used to take my little hand in hers, and cause me on my knees to
+say, 'Our Father who art in heaven!'"
+
+But such instance must, on the whole, be regarded as exceptional. As the
+character is biassed in early life, so it generally remains, gradually
+assuming its permanent form as manhood is reached. "Live as long as you
+may," said Southey, "the first twenty years are the longest half of your
+life," and they are by far the most pregnant in consequences. When the
+worn-out slanderer and voluptuary, Dr. Wolcot, lay on his deathbed, one
+of his friends asked if he could do anything to gratify him. "Yes," said
+the dying man, eagerly, "give me back my youth." Give him but that, and
+he would repent--he would reform. But it was all too late! His life had
+become bound and enthralled by the chains of habit.' [113]
+
+Gretry, the musical composer, thought so highly of the importance of
+woman as an educator of character, that he described a good mother as
+"Nature's CHEF-D'OEUVRE." And he was right: for good mothers, far more
+than fathers, tend to the perpetual renovation of mankind, creating,
+as they do, the moral atmosphere of the home, which is the nutriment of
+man's moral being, as the physical atmosphere is of his corporeal frame.
+By good temper, suavity, and kindness, directed by intelligence, woman
+surrounds the indwellers with a pervading atmosphere of cheerfulness,
+contentment, and peace, suitable for the growth of the purest as of the
+manliest natures.
+
+The poorest dwelling, presided over by a virtuous, thrifty, cheerful,
+and cleanly woman, may thus be the abode of comfort, virtue, and
+happiness; it may be the scene of every ennobling relation in family
+life; it may be endeared to a man by many delightful associations;
+furnishing a sanctuary for the heart, a refuge from the storms of life,
+a sweet resting-place after labour, a consolation in misfortune, a pride
+in prosperity, and a joy at all times.
+
+The good home is thus the best of schools, not only in youth but in age.
+There young and old best learn cheerfulness, patience, self-control,
+and the spirit of service and of duty. Izaak Walton, speaking of George
+Herbert's mother, says she governed her family with judicious care, not
+rigidly nor sourly, "but with such a sweetness and compliance with the
+recreations and pleasures of youth, as did incline them to spend much of
+their time in her company, which was to her great content."
+
+The home is the true school of courtesy, of which woman is always the
+best practical instructor. "Without woman," says the Provencal proverb,
+"men were but ill-licked cubs." Philanthropy radiates from the home as
+from a centre. "To love the little platoon we belong to in society,"
+said Burke, "is the germ of all public affections." The wisest and
+the best have not been ashamed to own it to be their greatest joy and
+happiness to sit "behind the heads of children" in the inviolable circle
+of home. A life of purity and duty there is not the least effectual
+preparative for a life of public work and duty; and the man who loves
+his home will not the less fondly love and serve his country. But while
+homes, which are the nurseries of character, may be the best of
+schools, they may also be the worst. Between childhood and manhood how
+incalculable is the mischief which ignorance in the home has the power
+to cause! Between the drawing of the first breath and the last, how vast
+is the moral suffering and disease occasioned by incompetent mothers and
+nurses! Commit a child to the care of a worthless ignorant woman, and no
+culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done. Let the mother
+be idle, vicious, and a slattern; let her home be pervaded by cavilling,
+petulance, and discontent, and it will become a dwelling of misery--a
+place to fly from, rather than to fly to; and the children whose
+misfortune it is to be brought up there, will be morally dwarfed and
+deformed--the cause of misery to themselves as well as to others.
+
+Napoleon Buonaparte was accustomed to say that "the future good or
+bad conduct of a child depended entirely on the mother." He himself
+attributed his rise in life in a great measure to the training of his
+will, his energy, and his self-control, by his mother at home. "Nobody
+had any command over him," says one of his biographers, "except his
+mother, who found means, by a mixture of tenderness, severity, and
+justice, to make him love, respect, and obey her: from her he learnt the
+virtue of obedience."
+
+A curious illustration of the dependence of the character of children
+on that of the mother incidentally occurs in one of Mr. Tufnell's school
+reports. The truth, he observes, is so well established that it has even
+been made subservient to mercantile calculation. "I was informed," he
+says, "in a large factory, where many children were employed, that the
+managers before they engaged a boy always inquired into the mother's
+character, and if that was satisfactory they were tolerably certain that
+her children would conduct themselves creditably. NO ATTENTION WAS PAID
+TO THE CHARACTER OF THE FATHER." [114]
+
+It has also been observed that in cases where the father has turned out
+badly--become a drunkard, and "gone to the dogs"--provided the mother is
+prudent and sensible, the family will be kept together, and the children
+probably make their way honourably in life; whereas in cases of
+the opposite sort, where the mother turns out badly, no matter how
+well-conducted the father may be, the instances of after-success in life
+on the part of the children are comparatively rare.
+
+The greater part of the influence exercised by women on the formation of
+character necessarily remains unknown. They accomplish their best work
+in the quiet seclusion of the home and the family, by sustained effort
+and patient perseverance in the path of duty. Their greatest triumphs,
+because private and domestic, are rarely recorded; and it is not often,
+even in the biographies of distinguished men, that we hear of the share
+which their mothers have had in the formation of their character, and
+in giving them a bias towards goodness. Yet are they not on that
+account without their reward. The influence they have exercised,
+though unrecorded, lives after them, and goes on propagating itself in
+consequences for ever.
+
+We do not often hear of great women, as we do of great men. It is of
+good women that we mostly hear; and it is probable that by determining
+the character of men and women for good, they are doing even greater
+work than if they were to paint great pictures, write great books, or
+compose great operas. "It is quite true," said Joseph de Maistre, "that
+women have produced no CHEFS-DOEUVRE. They have written no 'Iliad,' nor
+'Jerusalem Delivered,' nor 'Hamlet,' nor 'Phaedre,' nor 'Paradise Lost,'
+nor 'Tartuffe;' they have designed no Church of St. Peter's, composed
+no 'Messiah,' carved no 'Apollo Belvidere,' painted no 'Last Judgment;'
+they have invented neither algebra, nor telescopes, nor steam-engines;
+but they have done something far greater and better than all this, for
+it is at their knees that upright and virtuous men and women have been
+trained--the most excellent productions in the world."
+
+De Maistre, in his letters and writings, speaks of his own mother with
+immense love and reverence. Her noble character made all other women
+venerable in his eyes. He described her as his "sublime mother"--"an
+angel to whom God had lent a body for a brief season." To her he
+attributed the bent of his character, and all his bias towards good;
+and when he had grown to mature years, while acting as ambassador at the
+Court of St. Petersburg, he referred to her noble example and precepts
+as the ruling influence in his life.
+
+One of the most charming features in the character of Samuel Johnson,
+notwithstanding his rough and shaggy exterior, was the tenderness
+with which he invariably spoke of his mother [115]--a woman of strong
+understanding, who firmly implanted in his mind, as he himself
+acknowledges, his first impressions of religion. He was accustomed, even
+in the time of his greatest difficulties, to contribute largely, out of
+his slender means, to her comfort; and one of his last acts of filial
+duty was to write 'Rasselas' for the purpose of paying her little debts
+and defraying her funeral charges.
+
+George Washington was only eleven years of age--the eldest of five
+children--when his father died, leaving his mother a widow. She was a
+woman of rare excellence--full of resources, a good woman of business,
+an excellent manager, and possessed of much strength of character. She
+had her children to educate and bring up, a large household to govern,
+and extensive estates to manage, all of which she accomplished with
+complete success. Her good sense, assiduity, tenderness, industry, and
+vigilance, enabled her to overcome every obstacle; and as the richest
+reward of her solicitude and toil, she had the happiness to see all her
+children come forward with a fair promise into life, filling the spheres
+allotted to them in a manner equally honourable to themselves, and to
+the parent who had been the only guide of their, principles, conduct,
+and habits. [116]
+
+The biographer of Cromwell says little about the Protector's father, but
+dwells upon the character of his mother, whom he describes as a woman of
+rare vigour and decision of purpose: "A woman," he says, "possessed
+of the glorious faculty of self-help when other assistance failed her;
+ready for the demands of fortune in its extremest adverse turn; of
+spirit and energy equal to her mildness and patience; who, with the
+labour of her own hands, gave dowries to five daughters sufficient to
+marry them into families as honourable but more wealthy than their
+own; whose single pride was honesty, and whose passion was love; who
+preserved in the gorgeous palace at Whitehall the simple tastes that
+distinguished her in the old brewery at Huntingdon; and whose only care,
+amidst all her splendour, was for the safety of her son in his dangerous
+eminence." [117]
+
+We have spoken of the mother of Napoleon Buonaparte as a woman of
+great force of character. Not less so was the mother of the Duke of
+Wellington, whom her son strikingly resembled in features, person, and
+character; while his father was principally distinguished as a musical
+composer and performer. [118] But, strange to say, Wellington's mother
+mistook him for a dunce; and, for some reason or other, he was not such
+a favourite as her other children, until his great deeds in after-life
+constrained her to be proud of him.
+
+The Napiers were blessed in both parents, but especially in their
+mother, Lady Sarah Lennox, who early sought to inspire her sons' minds
+with elevating thoughts, admiration of noble deeds, and a chivalrous
+spirit, which became embodied in their lives, and continued to sustain
+them, until death, in the path of duty and of honour.
+
+Among statesmen, lawyers, and divines, we find marked mention made of
+the mothers of Lord Chancellors Bacon, Erskine, and Brougham--all women
+of great ability, and, in the case of the first, of great learning;
+as well as of the mothers of Canning, Curran, and President Adams--of
+Herbert, Paley, and Wesley. Lord Brougham speaks in terms almost
+approaching reverence of his grandmother, the sister of Professor
+Robertson, as having been mainly instrumental in instilling into his
+mind a strong desire for information, and the first principles of that
+persevering energy in the pursuit of every kind of knowledge which
+formed his prominent characteristic throughout life.
+
+Canning's mother was an Irishwoman of great natural ability, for whom
+her gifted son entertained the greatest love and respect to the close of
+his career. She was a woman of no ordinary intellectual power. "Indeed,"
+says Canning's biographer, "were we not otherwise assured of the fact
+from direct sources, it would be impossible to contemplate his profound
+and touching devotion to her, without being led to conclude that the
+object of such unchanging attachment must have been possessed of rare
+and commanding qualities. She was esteemed by the circle in which she
+lived, as a woman of great mental energy. Her conversation was animated
+and vigorous, and marked by a distinct originality of manner and a
+choice of topics fresh and striking, and out of the commonplace routine.
+To persons who were but slightly acquainted with her, the energy of her
+manner had even something of the air of eccentricity." [119]
+
+Curran speaks with great affection of his mother, as a woman of strong
+original understanding, to whose wise counsel, consistent piety, and
+lessons of honourable ambition, which she diligently enforced on the
+minds of her children, he himself principally attributed his success
+in life. "The only inheritance," he used to say, "that I could boast of
+from my poor father, was the very scanty one of an unattractive face
+and person; like his own; and if the world has ever attributed to me
+something more valuable than face or person, or than earthly wealth, it
+was that another and a dearer parent gave her child a portion from the
+treasure of her mind." [1110]
+
+When ex-President Adams was present at the examination of a girls'
+school at Boston, he was presented by the pupils with an address which
+deeply affected him; and in acknowledging it, he took the opportunity
+of referring to the lasting influence which womanly training and
+association had exercised upon his own life and character. "As a child,"
+he said, "I enjoyed perhaps the greatest of blessings that can be
+bestowed on man--that of a mother, who was anxious and capable to form
+the characters of her children rightly. From her I derived whatever
+instruction [11religious especially, and moral] has pervaded a long
+life--I will not say perfectly, or as it ought to be; but I will say,
+because it is only justice to the memory of her I revere, that, in the
+course of that life, whatever imperfection there has been, or deviation
+from what she taught me, the fault is mine, and not hers."
+
+The Wesleys were peculiarly linked to their parents by natural piety,
+though the mother, rather than the father, influenced their minds and
+developed their characters. The father was a man of strong will, but
+occasionally harsh and tyrannical in his dealings with his family; [1111]
+while the mother, with much strength of understanding and ardent love
+of truth, was gentle, persuasive, affectionate, and simple. She was the
+teacher and cheerful companion of her children, who gradually became
+moulded by her example. It was through the bias given by her to her
+sons' minds in religious matters that they acquired the tendency which,
+even in early years, drew to them the name of Methodists. In a letter to
+her son, Samuel Wesley, when a scholar at Westminster in 1709, she said:
+"I would advise you as much as possible to throw your business into a
+certain METHOD, by which means you will learn to improve every precious
+moment, and find an unspeakable facility in the performance of your
+respective duties." This "method" she went on to describe, exhorting
+her son "in all things to act upon principle;" and the society which the
+brothers John and Charles afterwards founded at Oxford is supposed to
+have been in a great measure the result of her exhortations.
+
+In the case of poets, literary men, and artists, the influence of the
+mother's feeling and taste has doubtless had great effect in directing
+the genius of their sons; and we find this especially illustrated in the
+lives of Gray, Thomson, Scott, Southey, Bulwer, Schiller, and Goethe.
+Gray inherited, almost complete, his kind and loving nature from his
+mother, while his father was harsh and unamiable. Gray was, in fact,
+a feminine man--shy, reserved, and wanting in energy,--but thoroughly
+irreproachable in life and character. The poet's mother maintained the
+family, after her unworthy husband had deserted her; and, at her death,
+Gray placed on her grave, in Stoke Pogis, an epitaph describing her as
+"the careful tender mother of many children, one of whom alone had the
+misfortune to survive her." The poet himself was, at his own desire,
+interred beside her worshipped grave.
+
+Goethe, like Schiller, owed the bias of his mind and character to his
+mother, who was a woman of extraordinary gifts. She was full of
+joyous flowing mother-wit, and possessed in a high degree the art of
+stimulating young and active minds, instructing them in the science
+of life out of the treasures of her abundant experience. [1112] After a
+lengthened interview with her, an enthusiastic traveller said, "Now do
+I understand how Goethe has become the man he is." Goethe himself
+affectionately cherished her memory. "She was worthy of life!" he
+once said of her; and when he visited Frankfort, he sought out every
+individual who had been kind to his mother, and thanked them all.
+
+It was Ary Scheffer's mother--whose beautiful features the painter so
+loved to reproduce in his pictures of Beatrice, St. Monica, and others
+of his works--that encouraged his study of art, and by great self-denial
+provided him with the means of pursuing it. While living at Dordrecht,
+in Holland, she first sent him to Lille to study, and afterwards to
+Paris; and her letters to him, while absent, were always full of sound
+motherly advice, and affectionate womanly sympathy. "If you could but
+see me," she wrote on one occasion, "kissing your picture, then, after
+a while, taking it up again, and, with a tear in my eye, calling you 'my
+beloved son,' you would comprehend what it costs me to use sometimes the
+stern language of authority, and to occasion to you moments of pain. *
+* * Work diligently--be, above all, modest and humble; and when you find
+yourself excelling others, then compare what you have done with Nature
+itself, or with the 'ideal' of your own mind, and you will be secured,
+by the contrast which will be apparent, against the effects of pride and
+presumption."
+
+Long years after, when Ary Scheffer was himself a grandfather, he
+remembered with affection the advice of his mother, and repeated it to
+his children. And thus the vital power of good example lives on from
+generation to generation, keeping the world ever fresh and young.
+Writing to his daughter, Madame Marjolin, in 1846, his departed mother's
+advice recurred to him, and he said: "The word MUST--fix it well in
+your memory, dear child; your grandmother seldom had it out of hers. The
+truth is, that through our lives nothing brings any good fruit except
+what is earned by either the work of the hands, or by the exertion of
+one's self-denial. Sacrifices must, in short, be ever going on if we
+would obtain any comfort or happiness. Now that I am no longer young, I
+declare that few passages in my life afford me so much satisfaction
+as those in which I made sacrifices, or denied myself enjoyments. 'Das
+Entsagen' [11the forbidden] is the motto of the wise man. Self-denial is
+the quality of which Jesus Christ set us the example." [1113]
+
+The French historian Michelet makes the following touching reference to
+his mother in the Preface to one of his most popular books, the subject
+of much embittered controversy at the time at which it appeared:--
+
+"Whilst writing all this, I have had in my mind a woman, whose
+strong and serious mind would not have failed to support me in
+these contentions. I lost her thirty years ago [11I was a child
+then]--nevertheless, ever living in my memory, she follows me from age
+to age.
+
+"She suffered with me in my poverty, and was not allowed to share my
+better fortune. When young, I made her sad, and now I cannot console
+her. I know not even where her bones are: I was too poor then to buy
+earth to bury her!"
+
+"And yet I owe her much. I feel deeply that I am the son of woman.
+Every instant, in my ideas and words [11not to mention my features and
+gestures], I find again my mother in myself. It is my mother's blood
+which gives me the sympathy I feel for bygone ages, and the tender
+remembrance of all those who are now no more."
+
+"What return then could I, who am myself advancing towards old age, make
+her for the many things I owe her? One, for which she would have thanked
+me--this protest in favour of women and mothers." [1114]
+
+But while a mother may greatly influence the poetic or artistic mind
+of her son for good, she may also influence it for evil. Thus the
+characteristics of Lord Byron--the waywardness of his impulses, his
+defiance of restraint, the bitterness of his hate, and the precipitancy
+of his resentments--were traceable in no small degree to the adverse
+influences exercised upon his mind from his birth by his capricious,
+violent, and headstrong mother. She even taunted her son with his
+personal deformity; and it was no unfrequent occurrence, in the violent
+quarrels which occurred between them, for her to take up the poker or
+tongs, and hurl them after him as he fled from her presence. [1115] It was
+this unnatural treatment that gave a morbid turn to Byron's after-life;
+and, careworn, unhappy, great, and yet weak as he was, he carried about
+with him the mother's poison which he had sucked in his infancy. Hence
+he exclaims, in his 'Childe Harold':--
+
+      "Yet must I think less wildly:--I have thought
+        Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
+      In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought,
+        A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:
+      And thus, UNTAUGHT IN YOUTH MY HEART TO TAME,
+        MY SPRINGS OF LIFE WERE POISONED."
+
+In like manner, though in a different way, the character of Mrs. Foote,
+the actor's mother, was curiously repeated in the life of her joyous,
+jovial-hearted son. Though she had been heiress to a large fortune,
+she soon spent it all, and was at length imprisoned for debt. In this
+condition she wrote to Sam, who had been allowing her a hundred a year
+out of the proceeds of his acting:-"Dear Sam, I am in prison for
+debt; come and assist your loving mother, E. Foote." To which her son
+characteristically replied--"Dear mother, so am I; which prevents
+his duty being paid to his loving mother by her affectionate son, Sam
+Foote."
+
+A foolish mother may also spoil a gifted son, by imbuing his mind with
+unsound sentiments. Thus Lamartine's mother is said to have trained him
+in altogether erroneous ideas of life, in the school of Rousseau and
+Bernardin de St.-Pierre, by which his sentimentalism, sufficiently
+strong by nature, was exaggerated instead of repressed: [1116] and he
+became the victim of tears, affectation, and improvidence, all his life
+long. It almost savours of the ridiculous to find Lamartine, in his
+'Confidences,' representing himself as a "statue of Adolescence raised
+as a model for young men." [1117] As he was his mother's spoilt child, so
+he was the spoilt child of his country to the end, which was bitter
+and sad. Sainte-Beuve says of him: "He was the continual object of the
+richest gifts, which he had not the power of managing, scattering
+and wasting them--all, excepting, the gift of words, which seemed
+inexhaustible, and on which he continued to play to the end as on an
+enchanted flute." [1118]
+
+We have spoken of the mother of Washington as an excellent woman of
+business; and to possess such a quality as capacity for business is not
+only compatible with true womanliness, but is in a measure essential to
+the comfort and wellbeing of every properly-governed family. Habits of
+business do not relate to trade merely, but apply to all the practical
+affairs of life--to everything that has to be arranged, to be organised,
+to be provided for, to be done. And in all these respects the management
+of a family, and of a household, is as much a matter of business as
+the management of a shop or of a counting-house. It requires method,
+accuracy, organization, industry, economy, discipline, tact, knowledge,
+and capacity for adapting means to ends. All this is of the essence of
+business; and hence business habits are as necessary to be cultivated
+by women who would succeed in the affairs of home--in other words, who
+would make home happy--as by men in the affairs of trade, of commerce,
+or of manufacture.
+
+The idea has, however, heretofore prevailed, that women have no concern
+with such matters, and that business habits and qualifications relate to
+men only. Take, for instance, the knowledge of figures. Mr. Bright has
+said of boys, "Teach a boy arithmetic thoroughly, and he is a made man."
+And why?--Because it teaches him method, accuracy, value, proportions,
+relations. But how many girls are taught arithmetic well?--Very few
+indeed. And what is the consequence?--When the girl becomes a wife,
+if she knows nothing of figures, and is innocent of addition and
+multiplication, she can keep no record of income and expenditure, and
+there will probably be a succession of mistakes committed which may
+be prolific in domestic contention. The woman, not being up to her
+business--that is, the management of her domestic affairs in conformity
+with the simple principles of arithmetic--will, through sheer ignorance,
+be apt to commit extravagances, though unintentional, which may be most
+injurious to her family peace and comfort.
+
+Method, which is the soul of business, is also of essential importance
+in the home. Work can only be got through by method. Muddle flies
+before it, and hugger-mugger becomes a thing unknown. Method demands
+punctuality, another eminently business quality. The unpunctual woman,
+like the unpunctual man, occasions dislike, because she consumes and
+wastes time, and provokes the reflection that we are not of sufficient
+importance to make her more prompt. To the business man, time is money;
+but to the business woman, method is more--it is peace, comfort, and
+domestic prosperity.
+
+Prudence is another important business quality in women, as in men.
+Prudence is practical wisdom, and comes of the cultivated judgment. It
+has reference in all things to fitness, to propriety; judging wisely of
+the right thing to be done, and the right way of doing it. It calculates
+the means, order, time, and method of doing. Prudence learns from
+experience, quickened by knowledge.
+
+For these, amongst other reasons, habits of business are necessary to
+be cultivated by all women, in order to their being efficient helpers in
+the world's daily life and work. Furthermore, to direct the power of the
+home aright, women, as the nurses, trainers, and educators of children,
+need all the help and strength that mental culture can give them.
+
+Mere instinctive love is not sufficient. Instinct, which preserves the
+lower creatures, needs no training; but human intelligence, which is in
+constant request in a family, needs to be educated. The physical health
+of the rising generation is entrusted to woman by Providence; and it is
+in the physical nature that the moral and mental nature lies enshrined.
+It is only by acting in accordance with the natural laws, which before
+she can follow woman must needs understand, that the blessings of health
+of body, and health of mind and morals, can be secured at home.
+Without a knowledge of such laws, the mother's love too often finds its
+recompence only in a child's coffin. [1119]
+
+It is a mere truism to say that the intellect with which woman as well
+as man is endowed, has been given for use and exercise, and not "to fust
+in her unused." Such endowments are never conferred without a purpose.
+The Creator may be lavish in His gifts, but he is never wasteful.
+
+Woman was not meant to be either an unthinking drudge, or the merely
+pretty ornament of man's leisure. She exists for herself, as well as
+for others; and the serious and responsible duties she is called upon to
+perform in life, require the cultivated head as well as the sympathising
+heart. Her highest mission is not to be fulfilled by the mastery of
+fleeting accomplishments, on which so much useful time is now wasted;
+for, though accomplishments may enhance the charms of youth and beauty,
+of themselves sufficiently charming, they will be found of very little
+use in the affairs of real life.
+
+The highest praise which the ancient Romans could express of a noble
+matron was that she sat at home and span--"DOMUM MANSIT, LANAM FECIT."
+In our own time, it has been said that chemistry enough to keep the pot
+boiling, and geography enough to know the different rooms in her house,
+was science enough for any woman; whilst Byron, whose sympathies for
+woman were of a very imperfect kind, professed that he would limit
+her library to a Bible and a cookery-book. But this view of woman's
+character and culture is as absurdly narrow and unintelligent, on the
+one hand, as the opposite view, now so much in vogue, is extravagant and
+unnatural on the other--that woman ought to be educated so as to be as
+much as possible the equal of man; undistinguishable from him, except
+in sex; equal to him in rights and votes; and his competitor in all that
+makes life a fierce and selfish struggle for place and power and money.
+
+Speaking generally, the training and discipline that are most suitable
+for the one sex in early life, are also the most suitable for the other;
+and the education and culture that fill the mind of the man will prove
+equally wholesome for the woman. Indeed, all the arguments which have
+yet been advanced in favour of the higher education of men, plead
+equally strongly in favour of the higher education of women. In all the
+departments of home, intelligence will add to woman's usefulness and
+efficiency. It will give her thought and forethought, enable her to
+anticipate and provide for the contingencies of life, suggest
+improved methods of management, and give her strength in every way. In
+disciplined mental power she will find a stronger and safer protection
+against deception and imposture than in mere innocent and unsuspecting
+ignorance; in moral and religious culture she will secure sources of
+influence more powerful and enduring than in physical attractions; and
+in due self-reliance and self-dependence she will discover the truest
+sources of domestic comfort and happiness.
+
+But while the mind and character of women ought to be cultivated with
+a view to their own wellbeing, they ought not the less to be educated
+liberally with a view to the happiness of others. Men themselves cannot
+be sound in mind or morals if women be the reverse; and if, as we hold
+to be the case, the moral condition of a people mainly depends upon the
+education of the home, then the education of women is to be regarded as
+a matter of national importance. Not only does the moral character but
+the mental strength of man find their best safeguard and support in the
+moral purity and mental cultivation of woman; but the more completely
+the powers of both are developed, the more harmonious and well-ordered
+will society be--the more safe and certain its elevation and
+advancement.
+
+When about fifty years since, the first Napoleon said that the great
+want of France was mothers, he meant, in other words, that the French
+people needed the education of homes, provided over by good, virtuous,
+intelligent women. Indeed, the first French Revolution presented one of
+the most striking illustrations of the social mischiefs resulting from
+a neglect of the purifying influence of women. When that great national
+outbreak occurred, society was impenetrated with vice and profligacy.
+Morals, religion, virtue, were swamped by sensualism. The character of
+woman had become depraved. Conjugal fidelity was disregarded; maternity
+was held in reproach; family and home were alike corrupted. Domestic
+purity no longer bound society together. France was motherless; the
+children broke loose; and the Revolution burst forth, "amidst the yells
+and the fierce violence of women." [1120]
+
+But the terrible lesson was disregarded, and again and again France
+has grievously suffered from the want of that discipline, obedience,
+self-control, and self-respect which can only be truly learnt at home.
+It is said that the Third Napoleon attributed the recent powerlessness
+of France, which left her helpless and bleeding at the feet of her
+conquerors, to the frivolity and lack of principle of the people, as
+well as to their love of pleasure--which, however, it must be confessed,
+he himself did not a little to foster. It would thus seem that the
+discipline which France still needs to learn, if she would be good and
+great, is that indicated by the First Napoleon--home education by good
+mothers.
+
+The influence of woman is the same everywhere. Her condition influences
+the morals, manners, and character of the people in all countries.
+Where she is debased, society is debased; where she is morally pure and
+enlightened, society will be proportionately elevated.
+
+Hence, to instruct woman is to instruct man; to elevate her character is
+to raise his own; to enlarge her mental freedom is to extend and secure
+that of the whole community. For Nations are but the outcomes of Homes,
+and Peoples of Mothers.
+
+But while it is certain that the character of a nation will be elevated
+by the enlightenment and refinement of woman, it is much more than
+doubtful whether any advantage is to be derived from her entering into
+competition with man in the rough work of business and polities. Women
+can no more do men's special work in the world than men can do women's.
+And wherever woman has been withdrawn from her home and family to enter
+upon other work, the result has been socially disastrous. Indeed, the
+efforts of some of the best philanthropists have of late years been
+devoted to withdrawing women from toiling alongside of men in coalpits,
+factories, nailshops, and brickyards.
+
+It is still not uncommon in the North for the husbands to be idle at
+home, while the mothers and daughters are working in the factory; the
+result being, in many cases, an entire subversion of family order, of
+domestic discipline, and of home rule. [1121] And for many years past, in
+Paris, that state of things has been reached which some women desire
+to effect amongst ourselves. The women there mainly attend to
+business--serving the BOUTIQUE, or presiding at the COMPTOIR--while
+the men lounge about the Boulevards. But the result has only been
+homelessness, degeneracy, and family and social decay.
+
+Nor is there any reason to believe that the elevation and improvement
+of women are to be secured by investing them with political power.
+There are, however, in these days, many believers in the potentiality
+of "votes," [1122] who anticipate some indefinite good from the
+"enfranchisement" of women. It is not necessary here to enter upon the
+discussion of this question. But it may be sufficient to state that
+the power which women do not possess politically is far more than
+compensated by that which they exercise in private life--by their
+training in the home those who, whether as men or as women, do all the
+manly as well as womanly work of the world. The Radical Bentham has said
+that man, even if he would, cannot keep power from woman; for that
+she already governs the world "with the whole power of a despot," [1123]
+though the power that she mainly governs by is love. And to form the
+character of the whole human race, is certainly a power far greater than
+that which women could ever hope to exercise as voters for members of
+Parliament, or even as lawmakers.
+
+There is, however, one special department of woman's work demanding the
+earnest attention of all true female reformers, though it is one
+which has hitherto been unaccountably neglected. We mean the better
+economizing and preparation of human food, the waste of which at
+present, for want of the most ordinary culinary knowledge, is little
+short of scandalous. If that man is to be regarded as a benefactor of
+his species who makes two stalks of corn to grow where only one grew
+before, not less is she to be regarded as a public benefactor who
+economizes and turns to the best practical account the food-products
+of human skill and labour. The improved use of even our existing supply
+would be equivalent to an immediate extension of the cultivable acreage
+of our country--not to speak of the increase in health, economy, and
+domestic comfort. Were our female reformers only to turn their energies
+in this direction with effect, they would earn the gratitude of
+all households, and be esteemed as among the greatest of practical
+philanthropists.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--COMPANIONSHIP AND EXAMPLES
+
+
+
+    "Keep good company, and you shall be of the number."
+                                 -- GEORGE HERBERT.
+
+    "For mine own part,
+    I Shall be glad to learn of noble men."--SHAKSPEARE
+
+    "Examples preach to th' eye--Care then, mine says,
+    Not how you end but how you spend your days."
+                  HENRY MARTEN--'LAST THOUGHTS.'
+
+     "Dis moi qui t'admire, et je dirai qui tu es."--SAINTE-BEUVE
+
+     "He that means to be a good limner will be sure to draw
+     after the most excellent copies and guide every stroke of
+     his pencil by the better pattern that lays before him; so he
+     that desires that the table of his life may be fair, will be
+     careful to propose the best examples, and will never be
+     content till he equals or excels them."--OWEN FELTHAM
+
+
+The natural education of the Home is prolonged far into life--indeed, it
+never entirely ceases. But the time arrives, in the progress of years,
+when the Home ceases to exercise an exclusive influence on the formation
+of character; and it is succeeded by the more artificial education of
+the school and the companionship of friends and comrades, which continue
+to mould the character by the powerful influence of example.
+
+Men, young and old--but the young more than the old--cannot help
+imitating those with whom they associate. It was a saying of George
+Herbert's mother, intended for the guidance of her sons, "that as our
+bodies take a nourishment suitable to the meat on which we feed, so
+do our souls as insensibly take in virtue or vice by the example or
+conversation of good or bad company."
+
+Indeed, it is impossible that association with those about us should not
+produce a powerful influence in the formation of character. For men are
+by nature imitators, and all persons are more or less impressed by the
+speech, the manners, the gait, the gestures, and the very habits of
+thinking of their companions. "Is example nothing?" said Burke. "It is
+everything. Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at
+no other." Burke's grand motto, which he wrote for the tablet of
+the Marquis of Rockingham, is worth repeating: it was,
+"Remember--resemble--persevere."
+
+Imitation is for the most part so unconscious that its effects are
+almost unheeded, but its influence is not the less permanent on that
+account. It is only when an impressive nature is placed in contact with
+an impressionable one, that the alteration in the character becomes
+recognisable. Yet even the weakest natures exercise some influence upon
+those about them. The approximation of feeling, thought, and habit is
+constant, and the action of example unceasing.
+
+Emerson has observed that even old couples, or persons who have been
+housemates for a course of years, grow gradually like each other; so
+that, if they were to live long enough, we should scarcely be able to
+know them apart. But if this be true of the old, how much more true
+is it of the young, whose plastic natures are so much more soft and
+impressionable, and ready to take the stamp of the life and conversation
+of those about them!
+
+"There has been," observed Sir Charles Bell in one of his letters, "a
+good deal said about education, but they appear to me to put out of
+sight EXAMPLE, which is all-in-all. My best education was the example
+set me by my brothers. There was, in all the members of the family, a
+reliance on self, a true independence, and by imitation I obtained it."
+[121]
+
+It is in the nature of things that the circumstances which contribute to
+form the character, should exercise their principal influence during the
+period of growth. As years advance, example and imitation become custom,
+and gradually consolidate into habit, which is of so much potency that,
+almost before we know it, we have in a measure yielded up to it our
+personal freedom.
+
+It is related of Plato, that on one occasion he reproved a boy for
+playing at some foolish game. "Thou reprovest me," said the boy, "for
+a very little thing." "But custom," replied Plato, "is not a little
+thing." Bad custom, consolidated into habit, is such a tyrant that men
+sometimes cling to vices even while they curse them. They have become
+the slaves of habits whose power they are impotent to resist. Hence
+Locke has said that to create and maintain that vigour of mind which is
+able to contest the empire of habit, may be regarded as one of the chief
+ends of moral discipline.
+
+Though much of the education of character by example is spontaneous and
+unconscious, the young need not necessarily be the passive followers
+or imitators of those about them. Their own conduct, far more than
+the conduct of their companions, tends to fix the purpose and form the
+principles of their life. Each possesses in himself a power of will and
+of free activity, which, if courageously exercised, will enable him to
+make his own individual selection of friends and associates. It is only
+through weakness of purpose that young people, as well as old, become
+the slaves of their inclinations, or give themselves up to a servile
+imitation of others.
+
+It is a common saying that men are known by the company they keep. The
+sober do not naturally associate with the drunken, the refined with
+the coarse, the decent with the dissolute. To associate with depraved
+persons argues a low taste and vicious tendencies, and to frequent their
+society leads to inevitable degradation of character. "The conversation
+of such persons," says Seneca, "is very injurious; for even if it does
+no immediate harm, it leaves its seeds in the mind, and follows us when
+we have gone from the speakers--a plague sure to spring up in future
+resurrection."
+
+If young men are wisely influenced and directed, and conscientiously
+exert their own free energies, they will seek the society of those
+better than themselves, and strive to imitate their example. In
+companionship with the good, growing natures will always find their best
+nourishment; while companionship with the bad will only be fruitful in
+mischief. There are persons whom to know is to love, honour, and admire;
+and others whom to know is to shun and despise,--"DONT LE SAVOIR
+N'EST QUE BETERIE," as says Rabelais when speaking of the education of
+Gargantua. Live with persons of elevated characters, and you will feel
+lifted and lighted up in them: "Live with wolves," says the Spanish
+proverb, "and you will learn to howl."
+
+Intercourse with even commonplace, selfish persons, may prove most
+injurious, by inducing a dry, dull reserved, and selfish condition of
+mind, more or less inimical to true manliness and breadth of character.
+The mind soon learns to run in small grooves, the heart grows narrow
+and contracted, and the moral nature becomes weak, irresolute,
+and accommodating, which is fatal to all generous ambition or real
+excellence.
+
+On the other hand, association with persons wiser, better, and more
+experienced than ourselves, is always more or less inspiring and
+invigorating. They enhance our own knowledge of life. We correct our
+estimates by theirs, and become partners in their wisdom. We enlarge our
+field of observation through their eyes, profit by their experience,
+and learn not only from what they have enjoyed, but--which is still more
+instructive--from what they have suffered. If they are stronger
+than ourselves, we become participators in their strength. Hence
+companionship with the wise and energetic never fails to have a most
+valuable influence on the formation of character--increasing our
+resources, strengthening our resolves, elevating our aims, and enabling
+us to exercise greater dexterity and ability in our own affairs, as well
+as more effective helpfulness of others.
+
+"I have often deeply regretted in myself," says Mrs. Schimmelpenninck,
+"the great loss I have experienced from the solitude of my early habits.
+We need no worse companion than our unregenerate selves, and, by living
+alone, a person not only becomes wholly ignorant of the means of helping
+his fellow-creatures, but is without the perception of those wants which
+most need help. Association with others, when not on so large a scale as
+to make hours of retirement impossible, may be considered as furnishing
+to an individual a rich multiplied experience; and sympathy so drawn
+forth, though, unlike charity, it begins abroad, never fails to bring
+back rich treasures home. Association with others is useful also in
+strengthening the character, and in enabling us, while we never lose
+sight of our main object, to thread our way wisely and well." [122]
+
+An entirely new direction may be given to the life of a young man by
+a happy suggestion, a timely hint, or the kindly advice of an honest
+friend. Thus the life of Henry Martyn the Indian missionary, seems to
+have been singularly influenced by a friendship which he formed, when a
+boy, at Truro Grammar School. Martyn himself was of feeble frame, and of
+a delicate nervous temperament. Wanting in animal spirits, he took
+but little pleasure in school sports; and being of a somewhat petulant
+temper, the bigger boys took pleasure in provoking him, and some of
+them in bullying him. One of the bigger boys, however, conceiving a
+friendship for Martyn, took him under his protection, stood between him
+and his persecutors, and not only fought his battles for him, but helped
+him with his lessons. Though Martyn was rather a backward pupil, his
+father was desirous that he should have the advantage of a college
+education, and at the age of about fifteen he sent him to Oxford to try
+for a Corpus scholarship, in which he failed. He remained for two years
+more at the Truro Grammar School, and then went to Cambridge, where he
+was entered at St. John's College. Who should he find already settled
+there as a student but his old champion of the Truro Grammar School?
+Their friendship was renewed; and the elder student from that time
+forward acted as the Mentor, of the younger one. Martyn was fitful in
+his studies, excitable and petulant, and occasionally subject to fits
+of almost uncontrollable rage. His big friend, on the other hand, was a
+steady, patient, hardworking fellow; and he never ceased to watch over,
+to guide, and to advise for good his irritable fellow-student. He kept
+Martyn out of the way of evil company, advised him to work hard, "not
+for the praise of men, but for the glory of God;" and so successfully
+assisted him in his studies, that at the following Christmas examination
+he was the first of his year. Yet Martyn's kind friend and Mentor
+never achieved any distinction himself; he passed away into obscurity,
+leading, most probably, a useful though an unknown career; his greatest
+wish in life having been to shape the character of his friend, to
+inspire his soul with the love of truth, and to prepare him for the
+noble work, on which he shortly after entered, of an Indian missionary.
+
+A somewhat similar incident is said to have occurred in the college
+career of Dr. Paley. When a student at Christ's College Cambridge, he
+was distinguished for his shrewdness as well as his clumsiness, and
+he was at the same time the favourite and the butt of his companions.
+Though his natural abilities were great, he was thoughtless, idle, and
+a spendthrift; and at the commencement of his third year he had
+made comparatively little progress. After one of his usual
+night-dissipations, a friend stood by his bedside on the following
+morning. "Paley," said he, "I have not been able to sleep for thinking
+about you. I have been thinking what a fool you are! I have the means of
+dissipation, and can afford to be idle: YOU are poor, and cannot afford
+it. I could do nothing, probably, even were I to try: YOU are capable of
+doing anything. I have lain awake all night thinking about your folly,
+and I have now come solemnly to warn you. Indeed, if you persist in
+your indolence, and go on in this way, I must renounce your society
+altogether!"
+
+It is said that Paley was so powerfully affected by this admonition,
+that from that moment he became an altered man. He formed an entirely
+new plan of life, and diligently persevered in it. He became one of the
+most industrious of students. One by one he distanced his competitors,
+and at the end of the year he came out Senior Wrangler. What he
+afterwards accomplished as an author and a divine is sufficiently well
+known.
+
+No one recognised more fully the influence of personal example on the
+young than did Dr. Arnold. It was the great lever with which he worked
+in striving to elevate the character of his school. He made it his
+principal object, first to put a right spirit into the leading boys,
+by attracting their good and noble feelings; and then to make them
+instrumental in propagating the same spirit among the rest, by the
+influence of imitation, example, and admiration. He endeavoured to make
+all feel that they were fellow-workers with himself, and sharers with
+him in the moral responsibility for the good government of the place.
+One of the first effects of this highminded system of management was,
+that it inspired the boys with strength and self-respect. They felt that
+they were trusted. There were, of course, MAUVAIS SUJETS at Rugby, as
+there are at all schools; and these it was the master's duty to watch,
+to prevent their bad example contaminating others. On one occasion
+he said to an assistant-master: "Do you see those two boys walking
+together? I never saw them together before. You should make an especial
+point of observing the company they keep: nothing so tells the changes
+in a boy's character."
+
+Dr. Arnold's own example was an inspiration, as is that of every great
+teacher. In his presence, young men learned to respect themselves; and
+out of the root of self-respect there grew up the manly virtues. "His
+very presence," says his biographer, "seemed to create a new spring
+of health and vigour within them, and to give to life an interest and
+elevation which remained with them long after they had left him; and
+dwelt so habitually in their thoughts as a living image, that, when
+death had taken him away, the bond appeared to be still unbroken, and
+the sense of separation almost lost in the still deeper sense of a life
+and a Union indestructible." [123] And thus it was that Dr. Arnold trained
+a host of manly and noble characters, who spread the influence of his
+example in all parts of the world.
+
+So also was it said of Dugald Stewart, that he breathed the love of
+virtue into whole generations of pupils. "To me," says the late Lord
+Cockburn, "his lectures were like the opening of the heavens. I felt
+that I had a soul. His noble views, unfolded in glorious sentences,
+elevated me into a higher world... They changed my whole nature." [124]
+
+Character tells in all conditions of life. The man of good character in
+a workshop will give the tone to his fellows, and elevate their entire
+aspirations. Thus Franklin, while a workman in London, is said to have
+reformed the manners of an entire workshop. So the man of bad character
+and debased energy will unconsciously lower and degrade his fellows.
+Captain John Brown--the "marching-on Brown"--once said to Emerson,
+that "for a settler in a new country, one good believing man is worth a
+hundred, nay, worth a thousand men without character." His example is so
+contagious, that all other men are directly and beneficially influenced
+by him, and he insensibly elevates and lifts them up to his own standard
+of energetic activity.
+
+Communication with the good is invariably productive of good. The good
+character is diffusive in his influence. "I was common clay till roses
+were planted in me," says some aromatic earth in the Eastern fable.
+Like begets like, and good makes good. "It is astonishing," says Canon
+Moseley, "how much good goodness makes. Nothing that is good is alone,
+nor anything bad; it makes others good or others bad--and that other,
+and so on: like a stone thrown into a pond, which makes circles that
+make other wider ones, and then others, till the last reaches the
+shore.... Almost all the good that is in the world has, I suppose,
+thus come down to us traditionally from remote times, and often unknown
+centres of good." [125] So Mr. Ruskin says, "That which is born of evil
+begets evil; and that which is born of valour and honour, teaches valour
+and honour."
+
+Hence it is that the life of every man is a daily inculcation of good
+or bad example to others. The life of a good man is at the same time the
+most eloquent lesson of virtue and the most severe reproof of vice. Dr.
+Hooker described the life of a pious clergyman of his acquaintance as
+"visible rhetoric," convincing even the most godless of the beauty of
+goodness. And so the good George Herbert said, on entering upon the
+duties of his parish: "Above all, I will be sure to live well, because
+the virtuous life of a clergyman is the most powerful eloquence, to
+persuade all who see it to reverence and love, and--at least to desire
+to live like him. And this I will do," he added, "because I know we live
+in an age that hath more need of good examples than precepts." It was a
+fine saying of the same good priest, when reproached with doing an
+act of kindness to a poor man, considered beneath the dignity of his
+office,--that the thought of such actions "would prove music to him at
+midnight." [126] Izaak Walton speaks of a letter written by George Herbert
+to Bishop Andrewes, about a holy life, which the latter "put into his
+bosom," and after showing it to his scholars, "did always return it to
+the place where he first lodged it, and continued it so, near his heart,
+till the last day of his life."
+
+Great is the power of goodness to charm and to command. The man inspired
+by it is the true king of men, drawing all hearts after him. When
+General Nicholson lay wounded on his deathbed before Delhi, he dictated
+this last message to his equally noble and gallant friend, Sir Herbert
+Edwardes:--"Tell him," said he, "I should have been a better man if
+I had continued to live with him, and our heavy public duties had not
+prevented my seeing more of him privately. I was always the better for
+a residence with him and his wife, however short. Give my love to them
+both!"
+
+There are men in whose presence we feel as if we breathed a spiritual
+ozone, refreshing and invigorating, like inhaling mountain air, or
+enjoying a bath of sunshine. The power of Sir Thomas More's gentle
+nature was so great that it subdued the bad at the same time that it
+inspired the good. Lord Brooke said of his deceased friend, Sir Philip
+Sidney, that "his wit and understanding beat upon his heart, to make
+himself and others, not in word or opinion, but in life and action, good
+and great."
+
+The very sight of a great and good man is often an inspiration to the
+young, who cannot help admiring and loving the gentle, the brave, the
+truthful, the magnanimous! Chateaubriand saw Washington only once,
+but it inspired him for life. After describing the interview, he says:
+"Washington sank into the tomb before any little celebrity had attached
+to my name. I passed before him as the most unknown of beings. He was
+in all his glory--I in the depth of my obscurity. My name probably dwelt
+not a whole day in his memory. Happy, however, was I that his looks were
+cast upon me. I have felt warmed for it all the rest of my life. There
+is a virtue even in the looks of a great man."
+
+When Niebuhr died, his friend, Frederick Perthes, said of him: "What a
+contemporary! The terror of all bad and base men, the stay of all the
+sterling and honest, the friend and helper of youth." Perthes said
+on another occasion: "It does a wrestling man good to be constantly
+surrounded by tried wrestlers; evil thoughts are put to flight when the
+eye falls on the portrait of one in whose living presence one would have
+blushed to own them." A Catholic money-lender, when about to cheat, was
+wont to draw a veil over the picture of his favourite saint. So Hazlitt
+has said of the portrait of a beautiful female, that it seemed as if an
+unhandsome action would be impossible in its presence. "It does one good
+to look upon his manly honest face," said a poor German woman, pointing
+to a portrait of the great Reformer hung upon the wall of her humble
+dwelling.
+
+Even the portrait of a noble or a good man, hung up in a room, is
+companionship after a sort. It gives us a closer personal interest in
+him. Looking at the features, we feel as if we knew him better, and were
+more nearly related to him. It is a link that connects us with a higher
+and better nature than our own. And though we may be far from reaching
+the standard of our hero, we are, to a certain extent, sustained and
+fortified by his depicted presence constantly before us.
+
+Fox was proud to acknowledge how much he owed to the example and
+conversation of Burke. On one occasion he said of him, that "if he was
+to put all the political information he had gained from books, all that
+he had learned from science, or that the knowledge of the world and its
+affairs taught him, into one scale, and the improvement he had derived
+from Mr. Burke's conversation and instruction into the other, the latter
+would preponderate."
+
+Professor Tyndall speaks of Faraday's friendship as "energy and
+inspiration." After spending an evening with him he wrote: "His work
+excites admiration, but contact with him warms and elevates the heart.
+Here, surely, is a strong man. I love strength, but let me not forget
+the example of its union with modesty, tenderness, and sweetness, in the
+character of Faraday."
+
+Even the gentlest natures are powerful to influence the character of
+others for good. Thus Wordsworth seems to have been especially impressed
+by the character of his sister Dorothy, who exercised upon his mind
+and heart a lasting influence. He describes her as the blessing of
+his boyhood as well as of his manhood. Though two years younger than
+himself, her tenderness and sweetness contributed greatly to mould his
+nature, and open his mind to the influences of poetry:
+
+        "She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,
+         And humble cares, and delicate fears;
+         A heart, the fountain of sweet tears,
+                 And love and thought and joy."
+
+Thus the gentlest natures are enabled, by the power of affection and
+intelligence, to mould the characters of men destined to influence and
+elevate their race through all time.
+
+Sir William Napier attributed the early direction of his character,
+first to the impress made upon it by his mother, when a boy; and
+afterwards to the noble example of his commander, Sir John Moore, when a
+man. Moore early detected the qualities of the young officer; and he
+was one of those to whom the General addressed the encouragement, "Well
+done, my majors!" at Corunna. Writing home to his mother, and describing
+the little court by which Moore was surrounded, he wrote, "Where shall
+we find such a king?" It was to his personal affection for his chief
+that the world is mainly indebted to Sir William Napier for his great
+book, 'The History of the Peninsular War.' But he was stimulated to
+write the book by the advice of another friend, the late Lord Langdale,
+while one day walking with him across the fields on which Belgravia is
+now built. "It was Lord Langdale," he says, "who first kindled the fire
+within me." And of Sir William Napier himself, his biographer truly
+says, that "no thinking person could ever come in contact with him
+without being strongly impressed with the genius of the man."
+
+The career of the late Dr. Marshall Hall was a lifelong illustration of
+the influence of character in forming character. Many eminent men still
+living trace their success in life to his suggestions and assistance,
+without which several valuable lines of study and investigation might
+not have been entered on, at least at so early a period. He would say
+to young men about him, "Take up a subject and pursue it well, and you
+cannot fail to succeed." And often he would throw out a new idea to a
+young friend, saying, "I make you a present of it; there is fortune in
+it, if you pursue it with energy."
+
+Energy of character has always a power to evoke energy in others. It
+acts through sympathy, one of the most influential of human agencies.
+The zealous energetic man unconsciously carries others along with him.
+His example is contagious, and compels imitation. He exercises a sort of
+electric power, which sends a thrill through every fibre--flows into the
+nature of those about him, and makes them give out sparks of fire.
+
+Dr. Arnold's biographer, speaking of the power of this kind exercised by
+him over young men, says: "It was not so much an enthusiastic admiration
+for true genius, or learning, or eloquence, which stirred within them;
+it was a sympathetic thrill, caught from a spirit that was earnestly
+at work in the world--whose work was healthy, sustained, and constantly
+carried forward in the fear of God--a work that was founded on a deep
+sense of its duty and its value." [127]
+
+Such a power, exercised by men of genius, evokes courage, enthusiasm,
+and devotion. It is this intense admiration for individuals--such as
+one cannot conceive entertained for a multitude--which has in all times
+produced heroes and martyrs. It is thus that the mastery of character
+makes itself felt. It acts by inspiration, quickening and vivifying the
+natures subject to its influence.
+
+Great minds are rich in radiating force, not only exerting power, but
+communicating and even creating it. Thus Dante raised and drew after him
+a host of great spirits--Petrarch, Boccacio, Tasso, and many more. From
+him Milton learnt to bear the stings of evil tongues and the contumely
+of evil days; and long years after, Byron, thinking of Dante under the
+pine-trees of Ravenna, was incited to attune his harp to loftier strains
+than he had ever attempted before. Dante inspired the greatest painters
+of Italy--Giotto, Orcagna, Michael Angelo, and Raphael. So Ariosto and
+Titian mutually inspired one another, and lighted up each other's glory.
+
+Great and good men draw others after them, exciting the spontaneous
+admiration of mankind. This admiration of noble character elevates
+the mind, and tends to redeem it from the bondage of self, one of the
+greatest stumbling blocks to moral improvement. The recollection of men
+who have signalised themselves by great thoughts or great deeds, seems
+as if to create for the time a purer atmosphere around us: and we feel
+as if our aims and purposes were unconsciously elevated.
+
+"Tell me whom you admire," said Sainte-Beuve, "and I will tell you what
+you are, at least as regards your talents, tastes, and character."
+Do you admire mean men?--your own nature is mean. Do you admire rich
+men?--you are of the earth, earthy. Do you admire men of title?--you
+are a toad-eater, or a tuft-hunter. [128] Do you admire honest, brave, and
+manly men?--you are yourself of an honest, brave, and manly spirit.
+
+It is in the season of youth, while the character is forming, that the
+impulse to admire is the greatest. As we advance in life, we crystallize
+into habit; and "NIL ADMIRARI" too often becomes our motto. It is well
+to encourage the admiration of great characters while the nature is
+plastic and open to impressions; for if the good are not admired--as
+young men will have their heroes of some sort--most probably the great
+bad may be taken by them for models. Hence it always rejoiced Dr. Arnold
+to hear his pupils expressing admiration of great deeds, or full of
+enthusiasm for persons or even scenery. "I believe," said he, "that
+'NIL ADMIRARI' is the devil's favourite text; and he could not choose
+a better to introduce his pupils into the more esoteric parts of his
+doctrine. And, therefore, I have always looked upon a man infected with
+the disorder of anti-romance as one who has lost the finest part of his
+nature, and his best protection against everything low and foolish." [129]
+
+It was a fine trait in the character of Prince Albert that he was always
+so ready to express generous admiration of the good deeds of others. "He
+had the greatest delight," says the ablest delineator of his character,
+"in anybody else saying a fine saying, or doing a great deed. He would
+rejoice over it, and talk about it for days; and whether it was a thing
+nobly said or done by a little child, or by a veteran statesman, it gave
+him equal pleasure. He delighted in humanity doing well on any occasion
+and in any manner." [1210]
+
+"No quality," said Dr. Johnson, "will get a man more friends than a
+sincere admiration of the qualities of others. It indicates generosity
+of nature, frankness, cordiality, and cheerful recognition of merit." It
+was to the sincere--it might almost be said the reverential--admiration
+of Johnson by Boswell, that we owe one of the best biographies ever
+written. One is disposed to think that there must have been some genuine
+good qualities in Boswell to have been attracted by such a man as
+Johnson, and to have kept faithful to his worship in spite of rebuffs
+and snubbings innumerable. Macaulay speaks of Boswell as an altogether
+contemptible person--as a coxcomb and a bore--weak, vain, pushing,
+curious, garrulous; and without wit, humour, or eloquence. But Carlyle
+is doubtless more just in his characterisation of the biographer, in
+whom--vain and foolish though he was in many respects--he sees a man
+penetrated by the old reverent feeling of discipleship, full of love
+and admiration for true wisdom and excellence. Without such qualities,
+Carlyle insists, the 'Life of Johnson' never could have been written.
+"Boswell wrote a good book," he says, "because he had a heart and an eye
+to discern wisdom, and an utterance to render it forth; because of
+his free insight, his lively talent, and, above all, of his love and
+childlike openmindedness."
+
+Most young men of generous mind have their heroes, especially if they
+be book-readers. Thus Allan Cunningham, when a mason's apprentice in
+Nithsdale, walked all the way to Edinburgh for the sole purpose of
+seeing Sir Walter Scott as he passed along the street. We unconsciously
+admire the enthusiasm of the lad, and respect the impulse which impelled
+him to make the journey. It is related of Sir Joshua Reynolds, that when
+a boy of ten, he thrust his hand through intervening rows of people to
+touch Pope, as if there were a sort of virtue in the contact. At a much
+later period, the painter Haydon was proud to see and to touch Reynolds
+when on a visit to his native place. Rogers the poet used to tell of his
+ardent desire, when a boy, to see Dr. Johnson; but when his hand was on
+the knocker of the house in Bolt Court, his courage failed him, and he
+turned away. So the late Isaac Disraeli, when a youth, called at Bolt
+Court for the same purpose; and though he HAD the courage to knock, to
+his dismay he was informed by the servant that the great lexicographer
+had breathed his last only a few hours before.
+
+On the contrary, small and ungenerous minds cannot admire heartily. To
+their own great misfortune, they cannot recognise, much less reverence,
+great men and great things. The mean nature admires meanly. The toad's
+highest idea of beauty is his toadess. The small snob's highest idea of
+manhood is the great snob. The slave-dealer values a man according to
+his muscles. When a Guinea trader was told by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in
+the presence of Pope, that he saw before him two of the greatest men in
+the world, he replied: "I don't know how great you may be, but I don't
+like your looks. I have often bought a man much better than both of you
+together, all bones and muscles, for ten guineas!"
+
+Although Rochefoucauld, in one of his maxims, says that there is
+something that is not altogether disagreeable to us in the misfortunes
+of even our best friends, it is only the small and essentially mean
+nature that finds pleasure in the disappointment, and annoyance at the
+success of others. There are, unhappily, for themselves, persons so
+constituted that they have not the heart to be generous. The most
+disagreeable of all people are those who "sit in the seat of the
+scorner." Persons of this sort often come to regard the success of
+others, even in a good work, as a kind of personal offence. They cannot
+bear to hear another praised, especially if he belong to their own art,
+or calling, or profession. They will pardon a man's failures, but cannot
+forgive his doing a thing better than they can do. And where they
+have themselves failed, they are found to be the most merciless of
+detractors. The sour critic thinks of his rival:
+
+    "When Heaven with such parts has blest him,
+    Have I not reason to detest him?"
+
+The mean mind occupies itself with sneering, carping, and fault-finding;
+and is ready to scoff at everything but impudent effrontery or
+successful vice. The greatest consolation of such persons are the
+defects of men of character. "If the wise erred not," says George
+Herbert, "it would go hard with fools." Yet, though wise men may learn
+of fools by avoiding their errors, fools rarely profit by the example
+which, wise men set them. A German writer has said that it is a
+miserable temper that cares only to discover the blemishes in the
+character of great men or great periods. Let us rather judge them with
+the charity of Bolingbroke, who, when reminded of one of the alleged
+weaknesses of Marlborough, observed,--"He was so great a man that I
+forgot he had that defect."
+
+Admiration of great men, living or dead, naturally evokes imitation
+of them in a greater or less degree. While a mere youth, the mind of
+Themistocles was fired by the great deeds of his contemporaries, and he
+longed to distinguish himself in the service of his country. When the
+Battle of Marathon had been fought, he fell into a state of melancholy;
+and when asked by his friends as to the cause, he replied "that the
+trophies of Miltiades would not suffer him to sleep." A few years later,
+we find him at the head of the Athenian army, defeating the Persian
+fleet of Xerxes in the battles of Artemisium and Salamis,--his country
+gratefully acknowledging that it had been saved through his wisdom and
+valour.
+
+It is related of Thucydides that, when a boy, he burst into tears on
+hearing Herodotus read his History, and the impression made upon
+his mind was such as to determine the bent of his own genius.
+And Demosthenes was so fired on one occasion by the eloquence of
+Callistratus, that the ambition was roused within him of becoming an
+orator himself. Yet Demosthenes was physically weak, had a feeble voice,
+indistinct articulation, and shortness of breath--defects which he was
+only enabled to overcome by diligent study and invincible determination.
+But, with all his practice, he never became a ready speaker; all his
+orations, especially the most famous of them, exhibiting indications of
+careful elaboration,--the art and industry of the orator being visible
+in almost every sentence.
+
+Similar illustrations of character imitating character, and moulding
+itself by the style and manner and genius of great men, are to be found
+pervading all history. Warriors, statesmen, orators, patriots, poets,
+and artists--all have been, more or less unconsciously, nurtured by the
+lives and actions of others living before them or presented for their
+imitation.
+
+Great men have evoked the admiration of kings, popes, and emperors.
+Francis de Medicis never spoke to Michael Angelo without uncovering,
+and Julius III. made him sit by his side while a dozen cardinals were
+standing. Charles V. made way for Titian; and one day, when the brush
+dropped from the painter's hand, Charles stooped and picked it up,
+saying, "You deserve to be served by an emperor." Leo X. threatened
+with excommunication whoever should print and sell the poems of Ariosto
+without the author's consent. The same pope attended the deathbed of
+Raphael, as Francis I. did that of Leonardo da Vinci.
+
+Though Haydn once archly observed that he was loved and esteemed by
+everybody except professors of music, yet all the greatest musicians
+were unusually ready to recognise each other's greatness. Haydn himself
+seems to have been entirely free from petty jealousy. His admiration of
+the famous Porpora was such, that he resolved to gain admission to his
+house, and serve him as a valet. Having made the acquaintance of the
+family with whom Porpora lived, he was allowed to officiate in that
+capacity. Early each morning he took care to brush the veteran's coat,
+polish his shoes, and put his rusty wig in order. At first Porpora
+growled at the intruder, but his asperity soon softened, and eventually
+melted into affection. He quickly discovered his valet's genius, and,
+by his instructions, directed it into the line in which Haydn eventually
+acquired so much distinction.
+
+Haydn himself was enthusiastic in his admiration of Handel. "He is the
+father of us all," he said on one occasion. Scarlatti followed Handel in
+admiration all over Italy, and, when his name was mentioned, he crossed
+himself in token of veneration. Mozart's recognition of the great
+composer was not less hearty. "When he chooses," said he, "Handel
+strikes like the thunderbolt." Beethoven hailed him as "The monarch of
+the musical kingdom." When Beethoven was dying, one of his friends sent
+him a present of Handel's works, in forty volumes. They were brought
+into his chamber, and, gazing on them with reanimated eye, he exclaimed,
+pointing at them with his finger, "There--there is the truth!"
+
+Haydn not only recognised the genius of the great men who had passed
+away, but of his young contemporaries, Mozart and Beethoven. Small men
+may be envious of their fellows, but really great men seek out and love
+each other. Of Mozart, Haydn wrote "I only wish I could impress on
+every friend of music, and on great men in particular, the same depth
+of musical sympathy, and profound appreciation of Mozart's inimitable
+music, that I myself feel and enjoy; then nations would vie with each
+other to possess such a jewel within their frontiers. Prague ought not
+only to strive to retain this precious man, but also to remunerate him;
+for without this the history of a great genius is sad indeed.... It
+enrages me to think that the unparalleled Mozart is not yet engaged by
+some imperial or royal court. Forgive my excitement; but I love the man
+so dearly!"
+
+Mozart was equally generous in his recognition of the merits of Haydn.
+"Sir," said he to a critic, speaking of the latter, "if you and I were
+both melted down together, we should not furnish materials for one
+Haydn." And when Mozart first heard Beethoven, he observed: "Listen to
+that young man; be assured that he will yet make a great name in the
+world."
+
+Buffon set Newton above all other philosophers, and admired him so
+highly that he had always his portrait before him while he sat at work.
+So Schiller looked up to Shakspeare, whom he studied reverently and
+zealously for years, until he became capable of comprehending nature at
+first-hand, and then his admiration became even more ardent than before.
+
+Pitt was Canning's master and hero, whom he followed and admired with
+attachment and devotion. "To one man, while he lived," said Canning, "I
+was devoted with all my heart and all my soul. Since the death of Mr.
+Pitt I acknowledge no leader; my political allegiance lies buried in his
+grave." [1211]
+
+A French physiologist, M. Roux, was occupied one day in lecturing to his
+pupils, when Sir Charles Bell, whose discoveries were even better known
+and more highly appreciated abroad than at home, strolled into his
+class-room. The professor, recognising his visitor, at once stopped his
+exposition, saying: "MESSIEURS, C'EST ASSEZ POUR AUJOURD'HUI, VOUS AVEZ
+VU SIR CHARLES BELL!"
+
+The first acquaintance with a great work of art has usually proved an
+important event in every young artist's life. When Correggio first gazed
+on Raphael's 'Saint Cecilia,' he felt within himself an awakened power,
+and exclaimed, "And I too am a painter" So Constable used to look back
+on his first sight of Claude's picture of 'Hagar,' as forming an epoch
+in his career. Sir George Beaumont's admiration of the same picture was
+such that he always took it with him in his carriage when he travelled
+from home.
+
+The examples set by the great and good do not die; they continue to
+live and speak to all the generations that succeed them. It was very
+impressively observed by Mr. Disraeli, in the House of Commons, shortly
+after the death of Mr. Cobden:--"There is this consolation remaining to
+us, when we remember our unequalled and irreparable losses, that those
+great men are not altogether lost to us--that their words will often be
+quoted in this House--that their examples will often be referred to
+and appealed to, and that even their expressions will form part of
+our discussions and debates. There are now, I may say, some members of
+Parliament who, though they may not be present, are still members of
+this House--who are independent of dissolutions, of the caprices of
+constituencies, and even of the course of time. I think that Mr. Cobden
+was one of those men."
+
+It is the great lesson of biography to teach what man can be and can do
+at his best. It may thus give each man renewed strength and confidence.
+The humblest, in sight of even the greatest, may admire, and hope, and
+take courage. These great brothers of ours in blood and lineage, who
+live a universal life, still speak to us from their graves, and beckon
+us on in the paths which they have trod. Their example is still with us,
+to guide, to influence, and to direct us. For nobility of character is
+a perpetual bequest; living from age to age, and constantly tending to
+reproduce its like.
+
+"The sage," say the Chinese, "is the instructor of a hundred ages. When
+the manners of Loo are heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the
+wavering determined." Thus the acted life of a good man continues to be
+a gospel of freedom and emancipation to all who succeed him:
+
+          "To live in hearts we leave behind,
+          is not to die."
+
+The golden words that good men have uttered, the examples they have set,
+live through all time: they pass into the thoughts and hearts of their
+successors, help them on the road of life, and often console them in the
+hour of death. "And the most miserable or most painful of deaths," said
+Henry Marten, the Commonwealth man, who died in prison, "is as nothing
+compared with the memory of a well-spent life; and great alone is he
+who has earned the glorious privilege of bequeathing such a lesson and
+example to his successors!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.--WORK.
+
+
+     "Arise therefore, and be doing, and the Lord be with thee."
+     --l CHRONICLES xxii. 16.
+
+        "Work as if thou hadst to live for aye;
+        Worship as if thou wert to die to-day."--TUSCAN PROVERB.
+
+          "C'est par le travail qu'on regne."--LOUIS XIV
+
+       "Blest work! if ever thou wert curse of God,
+        What must His blessing be!"--J. B. SELKIRK.
+
+     "Let every man be OCCUPIED, and occupied in the highest
+     employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the
+     consciousness that he has done his best"--Sydney Smith.
+
+
+WORK is one of the best educators of practical character. It evokes
+and disciplines obedience, self-control, attention, application, and
+perseverance; giving a man deftness and skill in his special calling,
+and aptitude and dexterity in dealing with the affairs of ordinary life.
+
+Work is the law of our being--the living principle that carries men and
+nations onward. The greater number of men have to work with their hands,
+as a matter of necessity, in order to live; but all must work in one way
+or another, if they would enjoy life as it ought to be enjoyed.
+
+Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and
+a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished. All that is great in
+man comes through work; and civilisation is its product. Were labour
+abolished, the race of Adam were at once stricken by moral death.
+
+It is idleness that is the curse of man--not labour. Idleness eats the
+heart out of men as of nations, and consumes them as rust does iron.
+When Alexander conquered the Persians, and had an opportunity of
+observing their manners, he remarked that they did not seem conscious
+that there could be anything more servile than a life of pleasure, or
+more princely than a life of toil.
+
+When the Emperor Severus lay on his deathbed at York, whither he
+had been borne on a litter from the foot of the Grampians, his final
+watchword to his soldiers was, "LABOREMUS" [we must work]; and nothing
+but constant toil maintained the power and extended the authority of the
+Roman generals.
+
+In describing the earlier social condition of Italy, when the ordinary
+occupations of rural life were considered compatible with the highest
+civic dignity, Pliny speaks of the triumphant generals and their men,
+returning contentedly to the plough. In those days the lands were tilled
+by the hands even of generals, the soil exulting beneath a ploughshare
+crowned with laurels, and guided by a husbandman graced with triumphs:
+"IPSORUM TUNC MANIBUS IMPERATORUM COLEBANTUR AGRI: UT FAS EST CREDERE,
+GAUDENTE TERRA VOMERE LAUREATO ET TRIUMPHALI ARATORE." [131] It was only
+after slaves became extensively employed in all departments of industry
+that labour came to be regarded as dishonourable and servile. And so
+soon as indolence and luxury became the characteristics of the ruling
+classes of Rome, the downfall of the empire, sooner or later, was
+inevitable.
+
+There is, perhaps, no tendency of our nature that has to be more
+carefully guarded against than indolence. When Mr. Gurney asked an
+intelligent foreigner who had travelled over the greater part of the
+world, whether he had observed any one quality which, more than another,
+could be regarded as a universal characteristic of our species, his
+answer was, in broken English, "Me tink dat all men LOVE LAZY." It is
+characteristic of the savage as of the despot. It is natural to men to
+endeavour to enjoy the products of labour without its toils. Indeed,
+so universal is this desire, that James Mill has argued that it was
+to prevent its indulgence at the expense of society at large, that the
+expedient of Government was originally invented. [132]
+
+Indolence is equally degrading to individuals as to nations. Sloth never
+made its mark in the world, and never will. Sloth never climbed a hill,
+nor overcame a difficulty that it could avoid. Indolence always failed
+in life, and always will. It is in the nature of things that it
+should not succeed in anything. It is a burden, an incumbrance, and a
+nuisance--always useless, complaining, melancholy, and miserable.
+
+Burton, in his quaint and curious, book--the only one, Johnson says,
+that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to
+rise--describes the causes of Melancholy as hingeing mainly on Idleness.
+"Idleness," he says, "is the bane of body and mind, the nurse of
+naughtiness, the chief mother of all mischief, one of the seven deadly
+sins, the devil's cushion, his pillow and chief reposal.... An idle dog
+will be mangy; and how shall an idle person escape? Idleness of the
+mind is much worse than that of the body: wit, without employment, is a
+disease--the rust of the soul, a plague, a hell itself. As in a standing
+pool, worms and filthy creepers increase, so do evil and corrupt
+thoughts in an idle person; the soul is contaminated.... Thus much I
+dare boldly say: he or she that is idle, be they of what condition they
+will, never so rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy--let them have
+all things in abundance and felicity that heart can wish and desire, all
+contentment--so long as he, or she, or they, are idle, they shall never
+be pleased, never well in body or mind, but weary still, sickly still,
+vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting,
+offended with the world, with every object, wishing themselves gone or
+dead, or else carried away with some foolish phantasie or other." [133]
+
+Burton says a great deal more to the same effect; the burden and lesson
+of his book being embodied in the pregnant sentence with which it winds
+up:--"Only take this for a corollary and conclusion, as thou tenderest
+thine own welfare in this, and all other melancholy, thy good health of
+body and mind, observe this short precept, Give not way to solitariness
+and idleness. BE NOT SOLITARY--BE NOT IDLE." [134]
+
+The indolent, however, are not wholly indolent. Though the body may
+shirk labour, the brain is not idle. If it do not grow corn, it will
+grow thistles, which will be found springing up all along the idle
+man's course in life. The ghosts of indolence rise up in the dark, ever
+staring the recreant in the face, and tormenting him:
+
+      "The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices,
+       Make instrument to scourge us."
+
+True happiness is never found in torpor of the faculties, [135] but in
+their action and useful employment. It is indolence that exhausts, not
+action, in which there is life, health, and pleasure. The spirits may
+be exhausted and wearied by employment, but they are utterly wasted by
+idleness. Hense a wise physician was accustomed to regard occupation as
+one of his most valuable remedial measures. "Nothing is so injurious,"
+said Dr. Marshall Hall, "as unoccupied time." An archbishop of Mayence
+used to say that "the human heart is like a millstone: if you put wheat
+under it, it grinds the wheat into flour; if you put no wheat, it grinds
+on, but then 'tis itself it wears away."
+
+Indolence is usually full of excuses; and the sluggard, though unwilling
+to work, is often an active sophist. "There is a lion in the path;" or
+"The hill is hard to climb;" or "There is no use trying--I have tried,
+and failed, and cannot do it." To the sophistries of such an excuser,
+Sir Samuel Romilly once wrote to a young man:--"My attack upon your
+indolence, loss of time, &c., was most serious, and I really think that
+it can be to nothing but your habitual want of exertion that can be
+ascribed your using such curious arguments as you do in your defence.
+Your theory is this: Every man does all the good that he can. If a
+particular individual does no good, it is a proof that he is incapable
+of doing it. That you don't write proves that you can't; and your want
+of inclination demonstrates your want of talents. What an admirable
+system!--and what beneficial effects would it be attended with, if it
+were but universally received!"
+
+It has been truly said, that to desire to possess, without being
+burdened with the trouble of acquiring, is as much a sign of weakness,
+as to recognise that everything worth having is only to be got by paying
+its price, is the prime secret of practical strength. Even leisure
+cannot be enjoyed unless it is won by effort. If it have not been earned
+by work, the price has not been paid for it. [136]
+
+There must be work before and work behind, with leisure to fall back
+upon; but the leisure, without the work, can no more be enjoyed than a
+surfeit. Life must needs be disgusting alike to the idle rich man as to
+the idle poor man, who has no work to do, or, having work, will not do
+it. The words found tattooed on the right arm of a sentimental beggar
+of forty, undergoing his eighth imprisonment in the gaol of Bourges
+in France, might be adopted as the motto of all idlers: "LE PASSE M'A
+TROMPE; LE PRESENT ME TOURMENTE; L'AVENIR M'EPOUVANTE;"--[13The past has
+deceived me; the present torments me; the future terrifies me]
+
+The duty of industry applies to all classes and conditions of society.
+All have their work to do in the irrespective conditions of life--the
+rich as well as the poor. [137] The gentleman by birth and education,
+however richly he may be endowed with worldly possessions, cannot but
+feel that he is in duty bound to contribute his quota of endeavour
+towards the general wellbeing in which he shares. He cannot be satisfied
+with being fed, clad, and maintained by the labour of others, without
+making some suitable return to the society that upholds him. An honest
+highminded man would revolt at the idea of sitting down to and enjoying
+a feast, and then going away without paying his share of the reckoning.
+To be idle and useless is neither an honour nor a privilege; and though
+persons of small natures may be content merely to consume--FRUGES
+CONSUMERE NATI--men of average endowment, of manly aspirations, and of
+honest purpose, will feel such a condition to be incompatible with real
+honour and true dignity.
+
+"I don't believe," said Lord Stanley [13now Earl of Derby] at Glasgow,
+"that an unemployed man, however amiable and otherwise respectable, ever
+was, or ever can be, really happy. As work is our life, show me what you
+can do, and I will show you what you are. I have spoken of love of one's
+work as the best preventive of merely low and vicious tastes. I will
+go further, and say that it is the best preservative against petty
+anxieties, and the annoyances that arise out of indulged self-love. Men
+have thought before now that they could take refuge from trouble and
+vexation by sheltering themselves as it were in a world of their own.
+The experiment has, often been tried, and always with one result. You
+cannot escape from anxiety and labour--it is the destiny of humanity....
+Those who shirk from facing trouble, find that trouble comes to them.
+The indolent may contrive that he shall have less than his share of the
+world's work to do, but Nature proportioning the instinct to the work,
+contrives that the little shall be much and hard to him. The man who has
+only himself to please finds, sooner or later, and probably sooner than
+later, that he has got a very hard master; and the excessive weakness
+which shrinks from responsibility has its own punishment too, for where
+great interests are excluded little matters become great, and the
+same wear and tear of mind that might have been at least usefully and
+healthfully expended on the real business of life is often wasted
+in petty and imaginary vexations, such as breed and multiply in the
+unoccupied brain." [138]
+
+Even on the lowest ground--that of personal enjoyment--constant useful
+occupation is necessary. He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of
+labour. "We sleep sound," said Sir Walter Scott, "and our waking
+hours are happy, when they are employed; and a little sense of toil is
+necessary to the enjoyment of leisure, even when earned by study and
+sanctioned by the discharge of duty."
+
+It is true, there are men who die of overwork; but many more die of
+selfishness, indulgence, and idleness. Where men break down by overwork,
+it is most commonly from want of duly ordering their lives, and neglect
+of the ordinary conditions of physical health. Lord Stanley was probably
+right when he said, in his address to the Glasgow students above
+mentioned, that he doubted whether "hard work, steadily and regularly
+carried on, ever yet hurt anybody."
+
+Then, again, length of YEARS is no proper test of length of LIFE. A
+man's life is to be measured by what he does in it, and what he feels in
+it. The more useful work the man does, and the more he thinks and feels,
+the more he really lives. The idle useless man, no matter to what extent
+his life may be prolonged, merely vegetates.
+
+The early teachers of Christianity ennobled the lot of toil by their
+example. "He that will not work," said Saint Paul, "neither shall he
+eat;" and he glorified himself in that he had laboured with his hands,
+and had not been chargeable to any man. When St. Boniface landed in
+Britain, he came with a gospel in one hand and a carpenter's rule in the
+other; and from England he afterwards passed over into Germany, carrying
+thither the art of building. Luther also, in the midst of a multitude of
+other employments, worked diligently for a living, earning his bread by
+gardening, building, turning, and even clockmaking. [139]
+
+It was characteristic of Napoleon, when visiting a work of mechanical
+excellence, to pay great respect to the inventor, and on taking his
+leave, to salute him with a low bow. Once at St. Helena, when walking
+with Mrs. Balcombe, some servants came along carrying a load. The
+lady, in an angry tone, ordered them out of the way, on which Napoleon
+interposed, saying, "Respect the burden, madam." Even the drudgery
+of the humblest labourer contributes towards the general wellbeing of
+society; and it was a wise saying of a Chinese Emperor, that "if there
+was a man who did not work, or a woman that was idle, somebody must
+suffer cold or hunger in the empire."
+
+The habit of constant useful occupation is as essential for the
+happiness and wellbeing of woman as of man. Without it, women are apt to
+sink into a state of listless ENNUI and uselessness, accompanied by sick
+headache and attacks of "nerves." Caroline Perthes carefully warned her
+married daughter Louisa to beware of giving way to such listlessness. "I
+myself," she said, "when the children are gone out for a half-holiday,
+sometimes feel as stupid and dull as an owl by daylight; but one must
+not yield to this, which happens more or less to all young wives. The
+best relief is WORK, engaged in with interest and diligence. Work, then,
+constantly and diligently, at something or other; for idleness is the
+devil's snare for small and great, as your grandfather says, and he says
+true." [1310]
+
+Constant useful occupation is thus wholesome, not only for the body, but
+for the mind. While the slothful man drags himself indolently through
+life, and the better part of his nature sleeps a deep sleep, if not
+morally and spiritually dead, the energetic man is a source of activity
+and enjoyment to all who come within reach of his influence. Even any
+ordinary drudgery is better than idleness. Fuller says of Sir Francis
+Drake, who was early sent to sea, and kept close to his work by his
+master, that such "pains and patience in his youth knit the joints of
+his soul, and made them more solid and compact." Schiller used to say
+that he considered it a great advantage to be employed in the discharge
+of some daily mechanical duty--some regular routine of work, that
+rendered steady application necessary.
+
+Thousands can bear testimony to the truth of the saying of Greuze, the
+French painter, that work--employment, useful occupation--is one of the
+great secrets of happiness. Casaubon was once induced by the entreaties
+of his friends to take a few days entire rest, but he returned to
+his work with the remark, that it was easier to bear illness doing
+something, than doing nothing.
+
+When Charles Lamb was released for life from his daily drudgery of
+desk-work at the India Office, he felt himself the happiest of men. "I
+would not go back to my prison," he said to a friend, "ten years longer,
+for ten thousand pounds." He also wrote in the same ecstatic mood to
+Bernard Barton: "I have scarce steadiness of head to compose a letter,"
+he said; "I am free! free as air! I will live another fifty years....
+Would I could sell you some of my leisure! Positively the best thing
+a man can do is--Nothing; and next to that, perhaps, Good Works." Two
+years--two long and tedious years passed; and Charles Lamb's feelings
+had undergone an entire change. He now discovered that official, even
+humdrum work--"the appointed round, the daily task"--had been good for
+him, though he knew it not. Time had formerly been his friend; it had
+now become his enemy. To Bernard Barton he again wrote: "I assure you,
+NO work is worse than overwork; the mind preys on itself--the most
+unwholesome of food. I have ceased to care for almost anything.... Never
+did the waters of heaven pour down upon a forlorner head. What I can
+do, and overdo, is to walk. I am a sanguinary murderer of time. But the
+oracle is silent."
+
+No man could be more sensible of the practical importance of industry
+than Sir Walter Scott, who was himself one of the most laborious and
+indefatigable of men. Indeed, Lockhart says of him that, taking all ages
+and countries together, the rare example of indefatigable energy, in
+union with serene self-possession of mind and manner, such as Scott's,
+must be sought for in the roll of great sovereigns or great captains,
+rather than in that of literary genius. Scott himself was most anxious
+to impress upon the minds of his own children the importance of industry
+as a means of usefulness and happiness in the world. To his son Charles,
+when at school, he wrote:--"I cannot too much impress upon your mind
+that LABOUR is the condition which God has imposed on us in every
+station of life; there is nothing worth having that can be had without
+it, from the bread which the peasant wins with the sweat of his brow,
+to the sports by which the rich man must get rid of his ENNUI.... As for
+knowledge, it can no more be planted in the human mind without labour
+than a field of wheat can be produced without the previous use of
+the plough. There is, indeed, this great difference, that chance or
+circumstances may so cause it that another shall reap what the farmer
+sows; but no man can be deprived, whether by accident or misfortune, of
+the fruits of his own studies; and the liberal and extended acquisitions
+of knowledge which he makes are all for his own use. Labour, therefore,
+my dear boy, and improve the time. In youth our steps are light, and our
+minds are ductile, and knowledge is easily laid up; but if we neglect
+our spring, our summers will be useless and contemptible, our harvest
+will be chaff, and the winter of our old age unrespected and desolate."
+[1311]
+
+Southey was as laborious a worker as Scott. Indeed, work might almost
+be said to form part of his religion. He was only nineteen when he
+wrote these words:--"Nineteen years! certainly a fourth part of my life;
+perhaps how great a part! and yet I have been of no service to society.
+The clown who scares crows for twopence a day is a more useful man; he
+preserves the bread which I eat in idleness." And yet Southey had
+not been idle as a boy--on the contrary, he had been a most diligent
+student. He had not only read largely in English literature, but was
+well acquainted, through translations, with Tasso, Ariosto, Homer, and
+Ovid. He felt, however, as if his life had been purposeless, and he
+determined to do something. He began, and from that time forward he
+pursued an unremitting career of literary labour down to the close of
+his life--"daily progressing in learning," to use his own words--"not so
+learned as he is poor, not so poor as proud, not so proud as happy."
+
+The maxims of men often reveal their character. [1312] That of Sir Walter
+Scott was, "Never to be doing nothing." Robertson the historian, as
+early as his fifteenth year, adopted the maxim of "VITA SINE LITERIS
+MORS EST" [13Life without learning is death]. Voltaire's motto was,
+"TOUJOURS AU TRAVAIL" [13Always at work]. The favourite maxim of Lacepede,
+the naturalist, was, "VIVRE C'EST VEILLER" [13To live is to observe]:
+it was also the maxim of Pliny. When Bossuet was at college, he was so
+distinguished by his ardour in study, that his fellow students, playing
+upon his name, designated him as "BOS-SUETUS ARATRO" [13The ox used to the
+plough]. The name of VITA-LIS [13Life a struggle], which the Swedish poet
+Sjoberg assumed, as Frederik von Hardenberg assumed that of NOVA-LIS,
+described the aspirations and the labours of both these men of genius.
+
+We have spoken of work as a discipline: it is also an educator of
+character. Even work that produces no results, because it IS work,
+is better than torpor,--inasmuch as it educates faculty, and is thus
+preparatory to successful work. The habit of working teaches method.
+It compels economy of time, and the disposition of it with judicious
+forethought. And when the art of packing life with useful occupations is
+once acquired by practice, every minute will be turned to account; and
+leisure, when it comes, will be enjoyed with all the greater zest.
+
+Coleridge has truly observed, that "if the idle are described as killing
+time, the methodical man may be justly said to call it into life and
+moral being, while he makes it the distinct object not only of the
+consciousness, but of the conscience. He organizes the hours and gives
+them a soul; and by that, the very essence of which is to fleet and to
+have been, he communicates an imperishable and spiritual nature. Of
+the good and faithful servant, whose energies thus directed are thus
+methodized, it is less truly affirmed that he lives in time than that
+time lives in him. His days and months and years, as the stops and
+punctual marks in the record of duties performed, will survive the wreck
+of worlds, and remain extant when time itself shall be no more." [1313]
+
+It is because application to business teaches method most effectually,
+that it is so useful as an educator of character. The highest working
+qualities are best trained by active and sympathetic contact with others
+in the affairs of daily life. It does not matter whether the business
+relate to the management of a household or of a nation. Indeed, as we
+have endeavoured to show in a preceding chapter, the able housewife must
+necessarily be an efficient woman of business. She must regulate and
+control the details of her home, keep her expenditure within her means,
+arrange everything according to plan and system, and wisely manage and
+govern those subject to her rule. Efficient domestic management implies
+industry, application, method, moral discipline, forethought,
+prudence, practical ability, insight into character, and power of
+organization--all of which are required in the efficient management of
+business of whatever sort.
+
+Business qualities have, indeed, a very large field of action. They mean
+aptitude for affairs, competency to deal successfully with the practical
+work of life--whether the spur of action lie in domestic management,
+in the conduct of a profession, in trade or commerce, in social
+organization, or in political government. And the training which gives
+efficiency in dealing with these various affairs is of all others the
+most useful in practical life. [1314] Moreover, it is the best discipline
+of character; for it involves the exercise of diligence, attention,
+self-denial, judgment, tact, knowledge of and sympathy with others.
+
+Such a discipline is far more productive of happiness as well as useful
+efficiency in life, than any amount of literary culture or meditative
+seclusion; for in the long run it will usually be found that practical
+ability carries it over intellect, and temper and habits over talent. It
+must, however, he added that this is a kind of culture that can only be
+acquired by diligent observation and carefully improved experience. "To
+be a good blacksmith," said General Trochu in a recent publication, "one
+must have forged all his life: to be a good administrator one should
+have passed his whole life in the study and practice of business."
+
+It was characteristic of Sir Walter Scott to entertain the highest
+respect for able men of business; and he professed that he did not
+consider any amount of literary distinction as entitled to be spoken of
+in the same breath with a mastery in the higher departments of practical
+life--least of all with a first-rate captain.
+
+The great commander leaves nothing to chance, but provides for every
+contingency. He condescends to apparently trivial details. Thus, when
+Wellington was at the head of his army in Spain, he directed the precise
+manner in which the soldiers were to cook their provisions. When in
+India, he specified the exact speed at which the bullocks were to be
+driven; every detail in equipment was carefully arranged beforehand. And
+thus not only was efficiency secured, but the devotion of his men, and
+their boundless confidence in his command. [1315]
+
+Like other great captains, Wellington had an almost boundless capacity
+for work. He drew up the heads of a Dublin Police Bill [13being still the
+Secretary for Ireland], when tossing off the mouth of the Mondego,
+with Junot and the French army waiting for him on the shore. So Caesar,
+another of the greatest commanders, is said to have written an essay
+on Latin Rhetoric while crossing the Alps at the head of his army.
+And Wallenstein when at the head of 60,000 men, and in the midst of
+a campaign with the enemy before him, dictated from headquarters the
+medical treatment of his poultry-yard.
+
+Washington, also, was an indefatigable man of business. From his boyhood
+he diligently trained himself in habits of application, of study, and of
+methodical work. His manuscript school-books, which are still preserved,
+show that, as early as the age of thirteen, he occupied himself
+voluntarily in copying out such things as forms of receipts, notes of
+hand, bills of exchange, bonds, indentures, leases, land-warrants, and
+other dry documents, all written out with great care. And the habits
+which he thus early acquired were, in a great measure, the foundation of
+those admirable business qualities which he afterwards so successfully
+brought to bear in the affairs of government.
+
+The man or woman who achieves success in the management of any great
+affair of business is entitled to honour,--it may be, to as much as the
+artist who paints a picture, or the author who writes a book, or the
+soldier who wins a battle. Their success may have been gained in the
+face of as great difficulties, and after as great struggles; and where
+they have won their battle, it is at least a peaceful one, and there is
+no blood on their hands.
+
+The idea has been entertained by some, that business habits are
+incompatible with genius. In the Life of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, [1316]
+it is observed of a Mr. Bicknell--a respectable but ordinary man, of
+whom little is known but that he married Sabrina Sidney, the ELEVE of
+Thomas Day, author of 'Sandford and Merton'--that "he had some of
+the too usual faults of a man of genius: he detested the drudgery of
+business." But there cannot be a greater mistake. The greatest geniuses
+have, without exception, been the greatest workers, even to the extent
+of drudgery. They have not only worked harder than ordinary men, but
+brought to their work higher faculties and a more ardent spirit. Nothing
+great and durable was ever improvised. It is only by noble patience and
+noble labour that the masterpieces of genius have been achieved.
+
+Power belongs only to the workers; the idlers are always powerless. It
+is the laborious and painstaking men who are the rulers of the world.
+There has not been a statesman of eminence but was a man of industry.
+"It is by toil," said even Louis XIV., "that kings govern." When
+Clarendon described Hampden, he spoke of him as "of an industry and
+vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and
+of parts not to be imposed on by the most subtle and sharp, and of a
+personal courage equal to his best parts." While in the midst of his
+laborious though self-imposed duties, Hampden, on one occasion, wrote
+to his mother: "My lyfe is nothing but toyle, and hath been for many
+yeares, nowe to the Commonwealth, nowe to the Kinge.... Not so much
+tyme left as to doe my dutye to my deare parents, nor to sende to them."
+Indeed, all the statesmen of the Commonwealth were great toilers;
+and Clarendon himself, whether in office or out of it, was a man of
+indefatigable application and industry.
+
+The same energetic vitality, as displayed in the power of working, has
+distinguished all the eminent men in our own as well as in past
+times. During the Anti-Corn Law movement, Cobden, writing to a friend,
+described himself as "working like a horse, with not a moment to spare."
+Lord Brougham was a remarkable instance of the indefatigably active and
+laborious man; and it might be said of Lord Palmerston, that he worked
+harder for success in his extreme old age than he had ever done in the
+prime of his manhood--preserving his working faculty, his good-humour
+and BONHOMMIE, unimpaired to the end. [1317] He himself was accustomed to
+say, that being in office, and consequently full of work, was good for
+his health. It rescued him from ENNUI. Helvetius even held, that it is
+man's sense of ENNUI that is the chief cause of his superiority over the
+brute,--that it is the necessity which he feels for escaping from its
+intolerable suffering that forces him to employ himself actively, and is
+hence the great stimulus to human progress.
+
+Indeed, this living principle of constant work, of abundant occupation,
+of practical contact with men in the affairs of life, has in all times
+been the best ripener of the energetic vitality of strong natures.
+Business habits, cultivated and disciplined, are found alike useful in
+every pursuit--whether in politics, literature, science, or art. Thus, a
+great deal of the best literary work has been done by men systematically
+trained in business pursuits. The same industry, application, economy
+of time and labour, which have rendered them useful in the one sphere of
+employment, have been found equally available in the other.
+
+Most of the early English writers were men of affairs, trained to
+business; for no literary class as yet existed, excepting it might
+be the priesthood. Chaucer, the father of English poetry, was first a
+soldier, and afterwards a comptroller of petty customs. The office was
+no sinecure either, for he had to write up all the records with his
+own hand; and when he had done his "reckonings" at the custom-house, he
+returned with delight to his favourite studies at home--poring over his
+books until his eyes were "dazed" and dull.
+
+The great writers in the reign of Elizabeth, during which there was such
+a development of robust life in England, were not literary men according
+to the modern acceptation of the word, but men of action trained in
+business. Spenser acted as secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland;
+Raleigh was, by turns, a courtier, soldier, sailor, and discoverer;
+Sydney was a politician, diplomatist, and soldier; Bacon was a laborious
+lawyer before he became Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor; Sir Thomas
+Browne was a physician in country practice at Norwich; Hooker was the
+hardworking pastor of a country parish; Shakspeare was the manager of a
+theatre, in which he was himself but an indifferent actor, and he seems
+to have been even more careful of his money investments than he was
+of his intellectual offspring. Yet these, all men of active business
+habits, are among the greatest writers of any age: the period of
+Elizabeth and James I. standing out in the history of England as the era
+of its greatest literary activity and splendour.
+
+In the reign of Charles I., Cowley held various offices of trust and
+confidence. He acted as private secretary to several of the royalist
+leaders, and was afterwards engaged as private secretary to the Queen,
+in ciphering and deciphering the correspondence which passed between her
+and Charles I.; the work occupying all his days, and often his nights,
+during several years. And while Cowley was thus employed in the royal
+cause, Milton was employed by the Commonwealth, of which he was the
+Latin secretary, and afterwards secretary to the Lord Protector. Yet, in
+the earlier part of his life, Milton was occupied in the humble vocation
+of a teacher. Dr. Johnson says, "that in his school, as in everything
+else which he undertook, he laboured with great diligence, there is no
+reason for doubting" It was after the Restoration, when his official
+employment ceased, that Milton entered upon the principal literary work
+of his life; but before he undertook the writing of his great epic,
+he deemed it indispensable that to "industrious and select reading"
+he should add "steady observation" and "insight into all seemly and
+generous arts and affairs." [1318]
+
+Locke held office in different reigns: first under Charles II. as
+Secretary to the Board of Trade and afterwards under William III. as
+Commissioner of Appeals and of Trade and Plantations. Many literary
+men of eminence held office in Queen Anne's reign. Thus Addison
+was Secretary of State; Steele, Commissioner of Stamps; Prior,
+Under-Secretary of State, and afterwards Ambassador to France; Tickell,
+Under-Secretary of State, and Secretary to the Lords Justices of
+Ireland; Congreve, Secretary of Jamaica;, and Gay, Secretary of Legation
+at Hanover.
+
+Indeed, habits of business, instead of unfitting a cultivated mind for
+scientific or literary pursuits, are often the best training for them.
+Voltaire insisted with truth that the real spirit of business and
+literature are the same; the perfection of each being the union of
+energy and thoughtfulness, of cultivated intelligence and practical
+wisdom, of the active and contemplative essence--a union commended by
+Lord Bacon as the concentrated excellence of man's nature. It has been
+said that even the man of genius can write nothing worth reading in
+relation to human affairs, unless he has been in some way or other
+connected with the serious everyday business of life.
+
+Hence it has happened that many of the best books, extant have been
+written by men of business, with whom literature was a pastime rather
+than a profession. Gifford, the editor of the 'Quarterly,' who knew the
+drudgery of writing for a living, once observed that "a single hour of
+composition, won from the business of the day, is worth more than the
+whole day's toil of him who works at the trade of literature: in the one
+case, the spirit comes joyfully to refresh itself, like a hart to the
+waterbrooks; in the other, it pursues its miserable way, panting and
+jaded, with the dogs and hunger of necessity behind." [1319]
+
+The first great men of letters in Italy were not mere men of letters;
+they were men of business--merchants, statesmen, diplomatists, judges,
+and soldiers. Villani, the author of the best History of Florence, was
+a merchant; Dante, Petrarch, and Boccacio, were all engaged in more or
+less important embassies; and Dante, before becoming a diplomatist, was
+for some time occupied as a chemist and druggist. Galileo, Galvani,
+and Farini were physicians, and Goldoni a lawyer. Ariosto's talent
+for affairs was as great as his genius for poetry. At the death of his
+father, he was called upon to manage the family estate for the benefit
+of his younger brothers and sisters, which he did with ability and
+integrity. His genius for business having been recognised, he was
+employed by the Duke of Ferrara on important missions to Rome and
+elsewhere. Having afterwards been appointed governor of a turbulent
+mountain district, he succeeded, by firm and just governments in
+reducing it to a condition of comparative good order and security. Even
+the bandits of the country respected him. Being arrested one day in the
+mountains by a body of outlaws, he mentioned his name, when they at once
+offered to escort him in safety wherever he chose.
+
+It has been the same in other countries. Vattel, the author of the
+'Rights of Nations,' was a practical diplomatist, and a first-rate man
+of business. Rabelais was a physician, and a successful practitioner;
+Schiller was a surgeon; Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon, Camoens,
+Descartes, Maupertius, La Rochefoucauld, Lacepede, Lamark, were soldiers
+in the early part of their respective lives.
+
+In our own country, many men now known by their writings, earned their
+living by their trade. Lillo spent the greater part of his life as a
+working jeweller in the Poultry; occupying the intervals of his leisure
+in the production of dramatic works, some of them of acknowledged power
+and merit. Izaak Walton was a linendraper in Fleet Street, reading much
+in his leisure hours, and storing his mind with facts for future use in
+his capacity of biographer. De Foe was by turns horse-factor, brick and
+tile maker, shopkeeper, author, and political agent.
+
+Samuel Richardson successfully combined literature, with business;
+writing his novels in his back-shop in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street,
+and selling them over the counter in his front-shop. William Hutton, of
+Birmingham, also successfully combined the occupations of bookselling
+and authorship. He says, in his Autobiography, that a man may live half
+a century and not be acquainted with his own character. He did not know
+that he was an antiquary until the world informed him of it, from having
+read his 'History of Birmingham,' and then, he said, he could see
+it himself. Benjamin Franklin was alike eminent as a printer and
+bookseller--an author, a philosopher and a statesman.
+
+Coming down to our own time, we find Ebenezer Elliott successfully
+carrying on the business of a bar-iron merchant in Sheffield, during
+which time he wrote and published the greater number of his poems; and
+his success in business was such as to enable him to retire into the
+country and build a house of his own, in which he spent the remainder
+of his days. Isaac Taylor, the author of the 'Natural History of
+Enthusiasm,' was an engraver of patterns for Manchester calico-printers;
+and other members of this gifted family were followers of the same
+branch of art.
+
+The principal early works of John Stuart Mill were written in the
+intervals of official work, while he held the office of principal
+examiner in the East India House,--in which Charles Lamb, Peacock the
+author of 'Headlong Hall,' and Edwin Norris the philologist, were also
+clerks. Macaulay wrote his 'Lays of Ancient Rome' in the War Office,
+while holding the post of Secretary of War. It is well known that the
+thoughtful writings of Mr. Helps are literally "Essays written in the
+Intervals of Business." Many of our best living authors are men holding
+important public offices--such as Sir Henry Taylor, Sir John Kaye,
+Anthony Trollope, Tom Taylor, Matthew Arnold, and Samuel Warren.
+
+Mr. Proctor the poet, better known as "Barry Cornwall," was a barrister
+and commissioner in lunacy. Most probably he assumed the pseudonym for
+the same reason that Dr. Paris published his 'Philosophy in Sport made
+Science in Earnest' anonymously--because he apprehended that, if known,
+it might compromise his professional position. For it is by no means an
+uncommon prejudice, still prevalent amongst City men, that a person who
+has written a book, and still more one who has written a poem, is
+good for nothing in the way of business. Yet Sharon Turner, though an
+excellent historian, was no worse a solicitor on that account; while the
+brothers Horace and James Smith, authors of 'The Rejected Addresses,'
+were men of such eminence in their profession, that they were selected
+to fill the important and lucrative post of solicitors to the Admiralty,
+and they filled it admirably.
+
+It was while the late Mr. Broderip, the barrister, was acting as a
+London police magistrate, that he was attracted to the study of natural
+history, in which he occupied the greater part of his leisure. He wrote
+the principal articles on the subject for the 'Penny Cyclopaedia,'
+besides several separate works of great merit, more particularly
+the 'Zoological Recreations,' and 'Leaves from the Notebook of a
+Naturalist.' It is recorded of him that, though he devoted so much of
+his time to the production of his works, as well as to the Zoological
+Society and their admirable establishment in Regent's Park, of which
+he was one of the founders, his studies never interfered with the real
+business of his life, nor is it known that a single question was ever
+raised upon his conduct or his decisions. And while Mr. Broderip devoted
+himself to natural history, the late Lord Chief Baron Pollock devoted
+his leisure to natural science, recreating himself in the practice
+of photography and the study of mathematics, in both of which he was
+thoroughly proficient.
+
+Among literary bankers we find the names of Rogers, the poet; Roscoe, of
+Liverpool, the biographer of Lorenzo de Medici; Ricardo, the author of
+'Political Economy and Taxation; [1320] Grote, the author of the 'History
+of Greece;' Sir John Lubbock, the scientific antiquarian; [1321] and
+Samuel Bailey, of Sheffield, the author of 'Essays on the Formation and
+Publication of Opinions,' besides various important works on ethics,
+political economy, and philosophy.
+
+Nor, on the other hand, have thoroughly-trained men of science and
+learning proved themselves inefficient as first-rate men of business.
+Culture of the best sort trains the habit of application and industry,
+disciplines the mind, supplies it with resources, and gives it freedom
+and vigour of action--all of which are equally requisite in the
+successful conduct of business. Thus, in young men, education and
+scholarship usually indicate steadiness of character, for they imply
+continuous attention, diligence, and the ability and energy necessary to
+master knowledge; and such persons will also usually be found possessed
+of more than average promptitude, address, resource, and dexterity.
+
+Montaigne has said of true philosophers, that "if they were great in
+science, they were yet much greater in action;... and whenever they have
+been put upon the proof, they have been seen to fly to so high a pitch,
+as made it very well appear their souls were strangely elevated and
+enriched with the knowledge of things." [1322]
+
+At the same time, it must be acknowledged that too exclusive a devotion
+to imaginative and philosophical literature, especially if prolonged in
+life until the habits become formed, does to a great extent incapacitate
+a man for the business of practical life. Speculative ability is one
+thing, and practical ability another; and the man who, in his study, or
+with his pen in hand, shows himself capable of forming large views of
+life and policy, may, in the outer world, be found altogether unfitted
+for carrying them into practical effect.
+
+Speculative ability depends on vigorous thinking--practical ability on
+vigorous acting; and the two qualities are usually found combined in
+very unequal proportions. The speculative man is prone to indecision:
+he sees all the sides of a question, and his action becomes suspended in
+nicely weighing the pros and cons, which are often found pretty nearly
+to balance each other; whereas the practical man overleaps logical
+preliminaries, arrives at certain definite convictions, and proceeds
+forthwith to carry his policy into action. [1323]
+
+Yet there have been many great men of science who have proved efficient
+men of business. We do not learn that Sir Isaac Newton made a worse
+Master of the Mint because he was the greatest of philosophers. Nor were
+there any complaints as to the efficiency of Sir John Herschel, who held
+the same office. The brothers Humboldt were alike capable men in all
+that they undertook--whether it was literature, philosophy, mining,
+philology, diplomacy, or statesmanship.
+
+Niebuhr, the historian, was distinguished for his energy and success as
+a man of business. He proved so efficient as secretary and accountant
+to the African consulate, to which he had been appointed by the Danish
+Government, that he was afterwards selected as one of the commissioners
+to manage the national finances; and he quitted that office to undertake
+the joint directorship of a bank at Berlin. It was in the midst of
+his business occupations that he found time to study Roman history, to
+master the Arabic, Russian, and other Sclavonic languages, and to
+build up the great reputation as an author by which he is now chiefly
+remembered.
+
+Having regard to the views professed by the First Napoleon as to men
+of science, it was to have been expected that he would endeavour to
+strengthen his administration by calling them to his aid. Some of his
+appointments proved failures, while others were completely successful.
+Thus Laplace was made Minister of the Interior; but he had no sooner
+been appointed than it was seen that a mistake had been made. Napoleon
+afterwards said of him, that "Laplace looked at no question in its true
+point of view. He was always searching after subtleties; all his ideas
+were problems, and he carried the spirit of the infinitesimal calculus
+into the management of business." But Laplace's habits had been formed
+in the study, and he was too old to adapt them to the purposes of
+practical life.
+
+With Darn it was different. But Darn had the advantage of some practical
+training in business, having served as an intendant of the army in
+Switzerland under Massena, during which he also distinguished himself as
+an author. When Napoleon proposed to appoint him a councillor of state
+and intendant of the Imperial Household, Darn hesitated to accept the
+office. "I have passed the greater part of my life," he said, "among
+books, and have not had time to learn the functions of a courtier." "Of
+courtiers," replied Napoleon, "I have plenty about me; they will never
+fail. But I want a minister, at once enlightened, firm, and vigilant;
+and it is for these qualities that I have selected you." Darn complied
+with the Emperor's wishes, and eventually became his Prime Minister,
+proving thoroughly efficient in that capacity, and remaining the same
+modest, honourable, and disinterested man that he had ever been through
+life.
+
+Men of trained working faculty so contract the habit of labour that
+idleness becomes intolerable to them; and when driven by circumstances
+from their own special line of occupation, they find refuge in other
+pursuits. The diligent man is quick to find employment for his leisure;
+and he is able to make leisure when the idle man finds none. "He hath no
+leisure," says George Herbert, "who useth it not." "The most active or
+busy man that hath been or can be," says Bacon, "hath, no question, many
+vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of
+business, except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and
+unworthily ambitious to meddle with things that may be better done by
+others." Thus many great things have been done during such "vacant times
+of leisure," by men to whom industry had become a second nature, and who
+found it easier to work than to be idle.
+
+Even hobbies are useful as educators of the working faculty. Hobbies
+evoke industry of a certain kind, and at least provide agreeable
+occupation. Not such hobbies as that of Domitian, who occupied
+himself in catching flies. The hobbies of the King of Macedon who made
+lanthorns, and of the King of France who made locks, were of a more
+respectable order. Even a routine mechanical employment is felt to be
+a relief by minds acting under high-pressure: it is an intermission of
+labour--a rest--a relaxation, the pleasure consisting in the work itself
+rather than in the result.
+
+But the best of hobbies are intellectual ones. Thus men of active
+mind retire from their daily business to find recreation in other
+pursuits--some in science, some in art, and the greater number in
+literature. Such recreations are among the best preservatives against
+selfishness and vulgar worldliness. We believe it was Lord Brougham
+who said, "Blessed is the man that hath a hobby!" and in the abundant
+versatility of his nature, he himself had many, ranging from literature
+to optics, from history and biography to social science. Lord Brougham
+is even said to have written a novel; and the remarkable story of the
+'Man in the Bell,' which appeared many years ago in 'Blackwood,' is
+reputed to have been from his pen. Intellectual hobbies, however, must
+not be ridden too hard--else, instead of recreating, refreshing, and
+invigorating a man's nature, they may only have the effect of sending
+him back to his business exhausted, enervated, and depressed.
+
+Many laborious statesmen besides Lord Brougham have occupied their
+leisure, or consoled themselves in retirement from office, by the
+composition of works which have become part of the standard literature
+of the world. Thus 'Caesar's Commentaries' still survive as a classic;
+the perspicuous and forcible style in which they are written placing
+him in the same rank with Xenophon, who also successfully combined the
+pursuit of letters with the business of active life.
+
+When the great Sully was disgraced as a minister, and driven into
+retirement, he occupied his leisure in writing out his 'Memoirs,'
+in anticipation of the judgment of posterity upon his career as a
+statesman. Besides these, he also composed part of a romance after the
+manner of the Scuderi school, the manuscript of which was found amongst
+his papers at his death.
+
+Turgot found a solace for the loss of office, from which he had been
+driven by the intrigues of his enemies, in the study of physical
+science. He also reverted to his early taste for classical literature.
+During his long journeys, and at nights when tortured by the gout, he
+amused himself by making Latin verses; though the only line of his
+that has been preserved was that intended to designate the portrait of
+Benjamin Franklin:
+
+      "Eripuit caelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."
+
+Among more recent French statesmen--with whom, however, literature
+has been their profession as much as politics--may be mentioned
+De Tocqueville, Thiers, Guizot, and Lamartine, while Napoleon III.
+challenged a place in the Academy by his 'Life of Caesar.'
+
+Literature has also been the chief solace of our greatest English
+statesmen. When Pitt retired from office, like his great contemporary
+Fox, he reverted with delight to the study of the Greek and Roman
+classics. Indeed, Grenville considered Pitt the best Greek scholar he
+had ever known. Canning and Wellesley, when in retirement, occupied
+themselves in translating the odes and satires of Horace. Canning's
+passion for literature entered into all his pursuits, and gave a colour
+to his whole life. His biographer says of him, that after a dinner at
+Pitt's, while the rest of the company were dispersed in conversation, he
+and Pitt would be observed poring over some old Grecian in a corner of
+the drawing-room. Fox also was a diligent student of the Greek authors,
+and, like Pitt, read Lycophron. He was also the author of a History
+of James II., though the book is only a fragment, and, it must be
+confessed, is rather a disappointing work.
+
+One of the most able and laborious of our recent statesmen--with whom
+literature was a hobby as well as a pursuit--was the late Sir George
+Cornewall Lewis. He was an excellent man of business--diligent, exact,
+and painstaking. He filled by turns the offices of President of the
+Poor Law Board--the machinery of which he created,--Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, Home Secretary, and Secretary at War; and in each he
+achieved the reputation of a thoroughly successful administrator. In the
+intervals of his official labours, he occupied himself with inquiries
+into a wide range of subjects--history, politics, philology,
+anthropology, and antiquarianism. His works on 'The Astronomy of the
+Ancients,' and 'Essays on the Formation of the Romanic Languages,' might
+have been written by the profoundest of German SAVANS. He took especial
+delight in pursuing the abstruser branches of learning, and found
+in them his chief pleasure and recreation. Lord Palmerston sometimes
+remonstrated with him, telling him he was "taking too much out of
+himself" by laying aside official papers after office-hours in order to
+study books; Palmerston himself declaring that he had no time to read
+books--that the reading of manuscript was quite enough for him.
+
+Doubtless Sir George Lewis rode his hobby too hard, and but for his
+devotion to study, his useful life would probably have been prolonged.
+Whether in or out of office, he read, wrote, and studied. He
+relinquished the editorship of the 'Edinburgh Review' to become
+Chancellor of the Exchequer; and when no longer occupied in preparing
+budgets, he proceeded to copy out a mass of Greek manuscripts at the
+British Museum. He took particular delight in pursuing any difficult
+inquiry in classical antiquity. One of the odd subjects with which he
+occupied himself was an examination into the truth of reported cases of
+longevity, which, according to his custom, he doubted or disbelieved.
+This subject was uppermost in his mind while pursuing his canvass of
+Herefordshire in 1852. On applying to a voter one day for his support,
+he was met by a decided refusal. "I am sorry," was the candidate's
+reply, "that you can't give me your vote; but perhaps you can tell me
+whether anybody in your parish has died at an extraordinary age!"
+
+The contemporaries of Sir George Lewis also furnish many striking
+instances of the consolations afforded by literature to statesmen
+wearied with the toils of public life. Though the door of office may
+be closed, that of literature stands always open, and men who are at
+daggers-drawn in politics, join hands over the poetry of Homer and
+Horace. The late Earl of Derby, on retiring from power, produced his
+noble version of 'The Iliad,' which will probably continue to be read
+when his speeches have been forgotten. Mr. Gladstone similarly occupied
+his leisure in preparing for the press his 'Studies on Homer,' [1324] and
+in editing a translation of 'Farini's Roman State;' while Mr. Disraeli
+signalised his retirement from office by the production of his
+'Lothair.' Among statesmen who have figured as novelists, besides Mr.
+Disraeli, are Lord Russell, who has also contributed largely to history
+and biography; the Marquis of Normandy, and the veteran novelist,
+Lord Lytton, with whom, indeed, politics may be said to have been his
+recreation, and literature the chief employment of his life.
+
+To conclude: a fair measure of work is good for mind as well as body.
+Man is an intelligence sustained and preserved by bodily organs, and
+their active exercise is necessary to the enjoyment of health. It is
+not work, but overwork, that is hurtful; and it is not hard work that is
+injurious so much as monotonous work, fagging work, hopeless work. All
+hopeful work is healthful; and to be usefully and hopefully employed is
+one of the great secrets of happiness. Brain-work, in moderation, is
+no more wearing than any other kind of work. Duly regulated, it is as
+promotive of health as bodily exercise; and, where due attention is paid
+to the physical system, it seems difficult to put more upon a man than
+he can bear. Merely to eat and drink and sleep one's way idly through
+life is vastly more injurious. The wear-and-tear of rust is even faster
+than the tear-and-wear of work.
+
+But overwork is always bad economy. It is, in fact, great waste,
+especially if conjoined with worry. Indeed, worry kills far more than
+work does. It frets, it excites, it consumes the body--as sand and grit,
+which occasion excessive friction, wear out the wheels of a machine.
+Overwork and worry have both to be guarded against. For over-brain-work
+is strain-work; and it is exhausting and destructive according as it is
+in excess of nature. And the brain-worker may exhaust and overbalance
+his mind by excess, just as the athlete may overstrain his muscles and
+break his back by attempting feats beyond the strength of his physical
+system.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.--COURAGE.
+
+
+        "It is not but the tempest that doth show
+         The seaman's cunning; but the field that tries
+         The captain's courage; and we come to know
+         Best what men are, in their worst jeopardies."--DANIEL.
+
+    "If thou canst plan a noble deed,
+     And never flag till it succeed,
+     Though in the strife thy heart should bleed,
+     Whatever obstacles control,
+     Thine hour will come--go on, true soul!
+     Thou'lt win the prize, thou'lt reach the goal."--C. MACKAY.
+
+     "The heroic example of other days is in great part the
+     source of the courage of each generation; and men walk up
+     composedly to the most perilous enterprises, beckoned
+     onwards by the shades of the brave that were."--HELPS.
+
+            "That which we are, we are,
+      One equal temper of heroic hearts,
+      Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
+      To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."--TENNYSON.
+
+
+THE world owes much to its men and women of courage. We do not mean
+physical courage, in which man is at least equalled by the bulldog; nor
+is the bulldog considered the wisest of his species.
+
+The courage that displays itself in silent effort and endeavour--that
+dares to endure all and suffer all for truth and duty--is more truly
+heroic than the achievements of physical valour, which are rewarded by
+honours and titles, or by laurels sometimes steeped in blood.
+
+It is moral courage that characterises the highest order of manhood and
+womanhood--the courage to seek and to speak the truth; the courage to
+be just; the courage to be honest; the courage to resist temptation; the
+courage to do one's duty. If men and women do not possess this virtue,
+they have no security whatever for the preservation of any other.
+
+Every step of progress in the history of our race has been made in the
+face of opposition and difficulty, and been achieved and secured by men
+of intrepidity and valour--by leaders in the van of thought--by great
+discoverers, great patriots, and great workers in all walks of life.
+There is scarcely a great truth or doctrine but has had to fight its
+way to public recognition in the face of detraction, calumny, and
+persecution. "Everywhere," says Heine, "that a great soul gives
+utterance to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha."
+
+    "Many loved Truth and lavished life's best oil,
+       Amid the dust of books to find her,
+    Content at last, for guerdon of their toil,
+       With the cast mantle she had left behind her.
+    Many in sad faith sought for her,
+    Many with crossed hands sighed for her,
+    But these, our brothers, fought for her,
+    At life's dear peril wrought for her,
+    So loved her that they died for her,
+    Tasting the raptured fleetness
+    Of her divine completeness." [141]
+
+Socrates was condemned to drink the hemlock at Athens in his
+seventy-second year, because his lofty teaching ran counter to the
+prejudices and party-spirit of his age. He was charged by his accusers
+with corrupting the youth of Athens by inciting them to despise the
+tutelary deities of the state. He had the moral courage to brave not
+only the tyranny of the judges who condemned him, but of the mob who
+could not understand him. He died discoursing of the doctrine of the
+immortality of the soul; his last words to his judges being, "It is now
+time that we depart--I to die, you to live; but which has the better
+destiny is unknown to all, except to the God."
+
+How many great men and thinkers have been persecuted in the name of
+religion! Bruno was burnt alive at Rome, because of his exposure of the
+fashionable but false philosophy of his time. When the judges of the
+Inquisition condemned him, to die, Bruno said proudly: "You are more
+afraid to pronounce my sentence than I am to receive it."
+
+To him succeeded Galileo, whose character as a man of science is almost
+eclipsed by that of the martyr. Denounced by the priests from the
+pulpit, because of the views he taught as to the motion of the earth,
+he was summoned to Rome, in his seventieth year, to answer for his
+heterodoxy. And he was imprisoned in the Inquisition, if he was not
+actually put to the torture there. He was pursued by persecution even
+when dead, the Pope refusing a tomb for his body.
+
+Roger Bacon, the Franciscan monk, was persecuted on account of his
+studies in natural philosophy, and he was charged with, dealing in
+magic, because of his investigations in chemistry. His writings were
+condemned, and he was thrown into prison, where he lay for ten years,
+during the lives of four successive Popes. It is even averred that he
+died in prison.
+
+Ockham, the early English speculative philosopher, was excommunicated
+by the Pope, and died in exile at Munich, where he was protected by the
+friendship of the then Emperor of Germany.
+
+The Inquisition branded Vesalius as a heretic for revealing man to man,
+as it had before branded Bruno and Galileo for revealing the heavens to
+man. Vesalius had the boldness to study the structure of the human body
+by actual dissection, a practice until then almost entirely forbidden.
+He laid the foundations of a science, but he paid for it with his
+life. Condemned by the Inquisition, his penalty was commuted, by the
+intercession of the Spanish king, into a pilgrimage to the Holy Land;
+and when on his way back, while still in the prime of life, he died
+miserably at Zante, of fever and want--a martyr to his love of science.
+
+When the 'Novum Organon' appeared, a hue-and-cry was raised against it,
+because of its alleged tendency to produce "dangerous revolutions," to
+"subvert governments," and to "overturn the authority of religion;"
+[142] and one Dr. Henry Stubbe [14whose name would otherwise have been
+forgotten] wrote a book against the new philosophy, denouncing the
+whole tribe of experimentalists as "a Bacon-faced generation." Even
+the establishment of the Royal Society was opposed, on the ground that
+"experimental philosophy is subversive of the Christian faith."
+
+While the followers of Copernicus were persecuted as infidels, Kepler
+was branded with the stigma of heresy, "because," said he, "I take that
+side which seems to me to be consonant with the Word of God." Even the
+pure and simpleminded Newton, of whom Bishop Burnet said that he had the
+WHITEST SOUL he ever knew--who was a very infant in the purity of his
+mind--even Newton was accused of "dethroning the Deity" by his sublime
+discovery of the law of gravitation; and a similar charge was made
+against Franklin for explaining the nature of the thunderbolt.
+
+Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jews, to whom he belonged, because of
+his views of philosophy, which were supposed to be adverse to religion;
+and his life was afterwards attempted by an assassin for the same
+reason. Spinoza remained courageous and self-reliant to the last, dying
+in obscurity and poverty.
+
+The philosophy of Descartes was denounced as leading to irreligion; the
+doctrines of Locke were said to produce materialism; and in our own
+day, Dr. Buckland, Mr. Sedgwick, and other leading geologists, have been
+accused of overturning revelation with regard to the constitution and
+history of the earth. Indeed, there has scarcely been a discovery in
+astronomy, in natural history, or in physical science, that has not been
+attacked by the bigoted and narrow-minded as leading to infidelity.
+
+Other great discoverers, though they may not have been charged with
+irreligion, have had not less obloquy of a professional and public
+nature to encounter. When Dr. Harvey published his theory of the
+circulation of the blood, his practice fell off, [143] and the medical
+profession stigmatised him as a fool. "The few good things I have been
+able to do," said John Hunter, "have been accomplished with the greatest
+difficulty, and encountered the greatest opposition." Sir Charles Bell,
+while employed in his important investigations as to the nervous system,
+which issued in one of the greatest of physiological discoveries, wrote
+to a friend: "If I were not so poor, and had not so many vexations
+to encounter, how happy would I be!" But he himself observed that his
+practice sensibly fell off after the publication of each successive
+stage of his discovery.
+
+Thus, nearly every enlargement of the domain of knowledge, which has
+made us better acquainted with the heavens, with the earth, and with
+ourselves, has been established by the energy, the devotion, the
+self-sacrifice, and the courage of the great spirits of past times, who,
+however much they have been opposed or reviled by their contemporaries,
+now rank amongst those whom the enlightened of the human race most
+delight to honour.
+
+Nor is the unjust intolerance displayed towards men of science in the
+past, without its lesson for the present. It teaches us to be forbearant
+towards those who differ from us, provided they observe patiently, think
+honestly, and utter their convictions freely and truthfully. It was a
+remark of Plato, that "the world is God's epistle to mankind;" and to
+read and study that epistle, so as to elicit its true meaning, can
+have no other effect on a well-ordered mind than to lead to a deeper
+impression of His power, a clearer perception of His wisdom, and a more
+grateful sense of His goodness.
+
+While such has been the courage of the martyrs of science, not less
+glorious has been the courage of the martyrs of faith. The passive
+endurance of the man or woman who, for conscience sake, is found
+ready to suffer and to endure in solitude, without so much as the
+encouragement of even a single sympathising voice, is an exhibition of
+courage of a far higher kind than that displayed in the roar of battle,
+where even the weakest feels encouraged and inspired by the enthusiasm
+of sympathy and the power of numbers. Time would fail to tell of the
+deathless names of those who through faith in principles, and in the
+face of difficulty, danger, and suffering, "have wrought righteousness
+and waxed valiant" in the moral warfare of the world, and been content
+to lay down their lives rather than prove false to their conscientious
+convictions of the truth.
+
+Men of this stamp, inspired by a high sense of duty, have in past times
+exhibited character in its most heroic aspects, and continue to present
+to us some of the noblest spectacles to be seen in history. Even women,
+full of tenderness and gentleness, not less than men, have in this cause
+been found capable of exhibiting the most unflinching courage. Such, for
+instance, as that of Anne Askew, who, when racked until her bones were
+dislocated, uttered no cry, moved no muscle, but looked her tormentors
+calmly in the face, and refused either to confess or to recant; or such
+as that of Latimer and Ridley, who, instead of bewailing their hard
+fate and beating their breasts, went as cheerfully to their death as
+a bridegroom to the altar--the one bidding the other to "be of good
+comfort," for that "we shall this day light such a candle in England, by
+God's grace, as shall never be put out;" or such, again, as that of Mary
+Dyer, the Quakeress, hanged by the Puritans of New England for preaching
+to the people, who ascended the scaffold with a willing step, and, after
+calmly addressing those who stood about, resigned herself into the hands
+of her persecutors, and died in peace and joy.
+
+Not less courageous was the behaviour of the good Sir Thomas More, who
+marched willingly to the scaffold, and died cheerfully there, rather
+than prove false to his conscience. When More had made his final
+decision to stand upon his principles, he felt as if he had won a
+victory, and said to his son-in-law Roper: "Son Roper, I thank Our Lord,
+the field is won!" The Duke of Norfolk told him of his danger, saying:
+"By the mass, Master More, it is perilous striving with princes; the
+anger of a prince brings death!". "Is that all, my lord?" said More;
+"then the difference between you and me is this--that I shall die
+to-day, and you to-morrow."
+
+While it has been the lot of many great men, in times of difficulty and
+danger, to be cheered and supported by their wives, More had no such
+consolation. His helpmate did anything but console him during his
+imprisonment in the Tower. [144] She could not conceive that there was any
+sufficient reason for his continuing to lie there, when by merely doing
+what the King required of him, he might at once enjoy his liberty,
+together with his fine house at Chelsea, his library, his orchard, his
+gallery, and the society of his wife and children. "I marvel," said she
+to him one day, "that you, who have been alway hitherto taken for wise,
+should now so play the fool as to lie here in this close filthy prison,
+and be content to be shut up amongst mice and rats, when you might be
+abroad at your liberty, if you would but do as the bishops have done?"
+But More saw his duty from a different point of view: it was not a mere
+matter of personal comfort with him; and the expostulations of his wife
+were of no avail. He gently put her aside, saying cheerfully, "Is not
+this house as nigh heaven as my own?"--to which she contemptuously
+rejoined: "Tilly vally--tilly vally!"
+
+More's daughter, Margaret Roper, on the contrary, encouraged her father
+to stand firm in his principles, and dutifully consoled and cheered
+him during his long confinement. Deprived of pen-and-ink, he wrote his
+letters to her with a piece of coal, saying in one of them: "If I were
+to declare in writing how much pleasure your daughterly loving letters
+gave me, a PECK OF COALS would not suffice to make the pens." More was
+a martyr to veracity: he would not swear a false oath; and he perished
+because he was sincere. When his head had been struck off, it was placed
+on London Bridge, in accordance with the barbarous practice of the
+times. Margaret Roper had the courage to ask for the head to be taken
+down and given to her, and, carrying her affection for her father beyond
+the grave, she desired that it might be buried with her when she died;
+and long after, when Margaret Roper's tomb was opened, the precious
+relic was observed lying on the dust of what had been her bosom.
+
+Martin Luther was not called upon to lay down his life for his faith;
+but, from the day that he declared himself against the Pope, he daily
+ran the risk of losing it. At the beginning of his great struggle, he
+stood almost entirely alone. The odds against him were tremendous. "On
+one side," said he himself, "are learning, genius, numbers, grandeur,
+rank, power, sanctity, miracles; on the other Wycliffe, Lorenzo Valla,
+Augustine, and Luther--a poor creature, a man of yesterday, standing
+wellnigh alone with a few friends." Summoned by the Emperor to appear at
+Worms; to answer the charge made against him of heresy, he determined to
+answer in person. Those about him told him that he would lose his life
+if he went, and they urged him to fly. "No," said he, "I will repair
+thither, though I should find there thrice as many devils as there are
+tiles upon the housetops!" Warned against the bitter enmity of a certain
+Duke George, he said--"I will go there, though for nine whole days
+running it rained Duke Georges."
+
+Luther was as good as his word; and he set forth upon his perilous
+journey. When he came in sight of the old bell-towers of Worms, he
+stood up in his chariot and sang, "EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT."--the
+'Marseillaise' of the Reformation--the words and music of which he is
+said to have improvised only two days before. Shortly before the meeting
+of the Diet, an old soldier, George Freundesberg, put his hand upon
+Luther's shoulder, and said to him: "Good monk, good monk, take heed
+what thou doest; thou art going into a harder fight than any of us have
+ever yet been in." But Luther's only answer to the veteran was, that he
+had "determined to stand upon the Bible and his conscience."
+
+Luther's courageous defence before the Diet is on record, and forms one
+of the most glorious pages in history. When finally urged by the Emperor
+to retract, he said firmly: "Sire, unless I am convinced of my error by
+the testimony of Scripture, or by manifest evidence, I cannot and will
+not retract, for we must never act contrary to our conscience. Such is
+my profession of faith, and you must expect none other from me. HIER
+STEHE ICH: ICH KANN NICHT ANDERS: GOTT HELFE MIR!" [14Here stand I: I
+cannot do otherwise: God help me!]. He had to do his duty--to obey
+the orders of a Power higher than that of kings; and he did it at all
+hazards.
+
+Afterwards, when hard pressed by his enemies at Augsburg, Luther said
+that "if he had five hundred heads, he would lose them all rather than
+recant his article concerning faith." Like all courageous men, his
+strength only seemed to grow in proportion to the difficulties he had to
+encounter and overcome. "There is no man in Germany," said Hutten, "who
+more utterly despises death than does Luther." And to his moral courage,
+perhaps more than to that of any other single man, do we owe the
+liberation of modern thought, and the vindication of the great rights of
+the human understanding.
+
+The honourable and brave man does not fear death compared with ignominy.
+It is said of the Royalist Earl of Strafford that, as he walked to the
+scaffold on Tower Hill, his step and manner were those of a general
+marching at the head of an army to secure victory, rather than of a
+condemned man to undergo sentence of death. So the Commonwealth's
+man, Sir John Eliot, went alike bravely to his death on the same spot,
+saying: "Ten thousand deaths rather than defile my conscience, the
+chastity and purity of which I value beyond all this world." Eliot's
+greatest tribulation was on account of his wife, whom he had to leave
+behind. When he saw her looking down upon him from the Tower window, he
+stood up in the cart, waved his hat, and cried: "To heaven, my love!--to
+heaven!--and leave you in the storm!" As he went on his way, one in the
+crowd called out, "That is the most glorious seat you ever sat on;" to
+which he replied: "It is so, indeed!" and rejoiced exceedingly. [145]
+
+Although success is the guerdon for which all men toil, they have
+nevertheless often to labour on perseveringly, without any glimmer
+of success in sight. They have to live, meanwhile, upon their
+courage--sowing their seed, it may be, in the dark, in the hope that it
+will yet take root and spring up in achieved result. The best of causes
+have had to fight their way to triumph through a long succession of
+failures, and many of the assailants have died in the breach before
+the fortress has been won. The heroism they have displayed is to be
+measured, not so much by their immediate success, as by the opposition
+they have encountered, and the courage with which they have maintained
+the struggle.
+
+The patriot who fights an always-losing battle--the martyr who goes to
+death amidst the triumphant shouts of his enemies--the discoverer, like
+Columbus, whose heart remains undaunted through the bitter years of his
+"long wandering woe"--are examples of the moral sublime which excite a
+profounder interest in the hearts of men than even the most complete and
+conspicuous success. By the side of such instances as these, how small
+by comparison seem the greatest deeds of valour, inciting men to rush
+upon death and die amidst the frenzied excitement of physical warfare!
+
+But the greater part of the courage that is needed in the world is not
+of a heroic kind. Courage may be displayed in everyday life as well
+as in historic fields of action. There needs, for example, the common
+courage to be honest--the courage to resist temptation--the courage
+to speak the truth--the courage to be what we really are, and not to
+pretend to be what we are not--the courage to live honestly within our
+own means, and not dishonestly upon the means of others.
+
+A great deal of the unhappiness, and much of the vice, of the world is
+owing to weakness and indecision of purpose--in other words, to lack
+of courage. Men may know what is right, and yet fail to exercise the
+courage to do it; they may understand the duty they have to do, but
+will not summon up the requisite resolution to perform it. The weak and
+undisciplined man is at the mercy of every temptation; he cannot say
+"No," but falls before it. And if his companionship be bad, he will be
+all the easier led away by bad example into wrongdoing.
+
+Nothing can be more certain than that the character can only be
+sustained and strengthened by its own energetic action. The will,
+which is the central force of character, must be trained to habits of
+decision--otherwise it will neither be able to resist evil nor to
+follow good. Decision gives the power of standing firmly, when to yield,
+however slightly, might be only the first step in a downhill course to
+ruin.
+
+Calling upon others for help in forming a decision is worse than
+useless. A man must so train his habits as to rely upon his own powers
+and depend upon his own courage in moments of emergency. Plutarch tells
+of a King of Macedon who, in the midst of an action, withdrew into the
+adjoining town under pretence of sacrificing to Hercules; whilst his
+opponent Emilius, at the same time that he implored the Divine aid,
+sought for victory sword in hand, and won the battle. And so it ever is
+in the actions of daily life.
+
+Many are the valiant purposes formed, that end merely in words; deeds
+intended, that are never done; designs projected, that are never begun;
+and all for want of a little courageous decision. Better far the silent
+tongue but the eloquent deed. For in life and in business, despatch is
+better than discourse; and the shortest answer of all is, DOING. "In
+matters of great concern, and which must be done," says Tillotson,
+"there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution--to be
+undetermined when the case is so plain and the necessity so urgent. To
+be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set
+about it,--this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and
+sleeping from one day to another, until he is starved and destroyed."
+
+There needs also the exercise of no small degree of moral courage to
+resist the corrupting influences of what is called "Society." Although
+"Mrs. Grundy" may be a very vulgar and commonplace personage, her
+influence is nevertheless prodigious. Most men, but especially women,
+are the moral slaves of the class or caste to which they belong. There
+is a sort of unconscious conspiracy existing amongst them against each
+other's individuality. Each circle and section, each rank and class, has
+its respective customs and observances, to which conformity is required
+at the risk of being tabooed. Some are immured within a bastile of
+fashion, others of custom, others of opinion; and few there are who have
+the courage to think outside their sect, to act outside their party,
+and to step out into the free air of individual thought and action.
+We dress, and eat, and follow fashion, though it may be at the risk of
+debt, ruin, and misery; living not so much according to our means, as
+according to the superstitious observances of our class. Though we may
+speak contemptuously of the Indians who flatten their heads, and of the
+Chinese who cramp their toes, we have only to look at the deformities
+of fashion amongst ourselves, to see that the reign of "Mrs. Grundy" is
+universal.
+
+But moral cowardice is exhibited quite as much in public as in private
+life. Snobbism is not confined to the toadying of the rich, but is quite
+as often displayed in the toadying of the poor. Formerly, sycophancy
+showed itself in not daring to speak the truth to those in high places;
+but in these days it rather shows itself in not daring to speak the
+truth to those in low places. Now that "the masses" [146] exercise
+political power, there is a growing tendency to fawn upon them, to
+flatter them, and to speak nothing but smooth words to them. They are
+credited with virtues which they themselves know they do not possess.
+The public enunciation of wholesome because disagreeable truths is
+avoided; and, to win their favour, sympathy is often pretended for
+views, the carrying out of which in practice is known to be hopeless.
+
+It is not the man of the noblest character--the highest-cultured and
+best-conditioned man--whose favour is now sought, so much as that of the
+lowest man, the least-cultured and worst-conditioned man, because his
+vote is usually that of the majority. Even men of rank, wealth, and
+education, are seen prostrating themselves before the ignorant, whose
+votes are thus to be got. They are ready to be unprincipled and unjust
+rather than unpopular. It is so much easier for some men to stoop, to
+bow, and to flatter, than to be manly, resolute, and magnanimous; and to
+yield to prejudices than run counter to them. It requires strength and
+courage to swim against the stream, while any dead fish can float with
+it.
+
+This servile pandering to popularity has been rapidly on the increase of
+late years, and its tendency has been to lower and degrade the character
+of public men. Consciences have become more elastic. There is now one
+opinion for the chamber, and another for the platform. Prejudices
+are pandered to in public, which in private are despised. Pretended
+conversions--which invariably jump with party interests are more sudden;
+and even hypocrisy now appears to be scarcely thought discreditable.
+
+The same moral cowardice extends downwards as well as upwards. The
+action and reaction are equal. Hypocrisy and timeserving above are
+accompanied by hypocrisy and timeserving below. Where men of high
+standing have not the courage of their opinions, what is to be expected
+from men of low standing? They will only follow such examples as are set
+before them. They too will skulk, and dodge, and prevaricate--be ready
+to speak one way and act another--just like their betters. Give them
+but a sealed box, or some hole-and-corner to hide their act in, and they
+will then enjoy their "liberty!"
+
+Popularity, as won in these days, is by no means a presumption in a
+man's favour, but is quite as often a presumption against him. "No man,"
+says the Russian proverb, "can rise to honour who is cursed with a stiff
+backbone." But the backbone of the popularity-hunter is of gristle; and
+he has no difficulty in stooping and bending himself in any direction to
+catch the breath of popular applause.
+
+Where popularity is won by fawning upon the people, by withholding the
+truth from them, by writing and speaking down to the lowest tastes, and
+still worse by appeals to class-hatred, [147] such a popularity must be
+simply contemptible in the sight of all honest men. Jeremy Bentham,
+speaking of a well-known public character, said: "His creed of politics
+results less from love of the many than from hatred of the few; it is
+too much under the influence of selfish and dissocial affection." To how
+many men in our own day might not the same description apply?
+
+Men of sterling character have the courage to speak the truth, even when
+it is unpopular. It was said of Colonel Hutchinson by his wife, that he
+never sought after popular applause, or prided himself on it: "He
+more delighted to do well than to be praised, and never set vulgar
+commendations at such a rate as to act contrary to his own conscience or
+reason for the obtaining them; nor would he forbear a good action which
+he was bound to, though all the world disliked it; for he ever looked
+on things as they were in themselves, not through the dim spectacles of
+vulgar estimation." [148]
+
+"Popularity, in the lowest and most common sense," said Sir John
+Pakington, on a recent occasion, [149] "is not worth the having. Do
+your duty to the best of your power, win the approbation of your own
+conscience, and popularity, in its best and highest sense, is sure to
+follow."
+
+When Richard Lovell Edgeworth, towards the close of his life, became
+very popular in his neighbourhood, he said one day to his daughter:
+"Maria, I am growing dreadfully popular; I shall be good for nothing
+soon; a man cannot be good for anything who is very popular." Probably
+he had in his mind at the time the Gospel curse of the popular man, "Woe
+unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers
+to the false prophets."
+
+Intellectual intrepidity is one of the vital conditions of independence
+and self-reliance of character. A man must have the courage to be
+himself, and not the shadow or the echo of another. He must exercise
+his own powers, think his own thoughts, and speak his own sentiments.
+He must elaborate his own opinions, and form his own convictions. It has
+been said that he who dare not form an opinion, must be a coward; he who
+will not, must be an idler; he who cannot, must be a fool.
+
+But it is precisely in this element of intrepidity that so many persons
+of promise fall short, and disappoint the expectations of their friends.
+They march up to the scene of action, but at every step their courage
+oozes out. They want the requisite decision, courage, and perseverance.
+They calculate the risks, and weigh the chances, until the opportunity
+for effective effort has passed, it may be never to return.
+
+Men are bound to speak the truth in the love of it. "I had rather
+suffer," said John Pym, the Commonwealth man, "for speaking the truth,
+than that the truth should suffer for want of my speaking." When a man's
+convictions are honestly formed, after fair and full consideration, he
+is justified in striving by all fair means to bring them into action.
+There are certain states of society and conditions of affairs in which
+a man is bound to speak out, and be antagonistic--when conformity is not
+only a weakness, but a sin. Great evils are in some cases only to be met
+by resistance; they cannot be wept down, but must be battled down.
+
+The honest man is naturally antagonistic to fraud, the truthful man to
+lying, the justice-loving man to oppression, the pureminded man to
+vice and iniquity. They have to do battle with these conditions, and if
+possible overcome them. Such men have in all ages represented the moral
+force of the world. Inspired by benevolence and sustained by courage,
+they have been the mainstays of all social renovation and progress. But
+for their continuous antagonism to evil conditions, the world were for
+the most part given over to the dominion of selfishness and vice.
+All the great reformers and martyrs were antagonistic men--enemies to
+falsehood and evildoing. The Apostles themselves were an organised
+band of social antagonists, who contended with pride, selfishness,
+superstition, and irreligion. And in our own time the lives of such
+men as Clarkson and Granville Sharpe, Father Mathew and Richard Cobden,
+inspired by singleness of purpose, have shown what highminded social
+antagonism can effect.
+
+It is the strong and courageous men who lead and guide and rule the
+world. The weak and timid leave no trace behind them; whilst the life of
+a single upright and energetic man is like a track of light. His example
+is remembered and appealed to; and his thoughts, his spirit, and his
+courage continue to be the inspiration of succeeding generations.
+
+It is energy--the central element of which is will--that produces the
+miracles of enthusiasm in all ages. Everywhere it is the mainspring of
+what is called force of character, and the sustaining power of all great
+action. In a righteous cause the determined man stands upon his courage
+as upon a granite block; and, like David, he will go forth to meet
+Goliath, strong in heart though an host be encamped against him.
+
+Men often conquer difficulties because they feel they can. Their
+confidence in themselves inspires the confidence of others. When Caesar
+was at sea, and a storm began to rage, the captain of the ship which
+carried him became unmanned by fear. "What art thou afraid of?" cried
+the great captain; "thy vessel carries Caesar!" The courage of the brave
+man is contagious, and carries others along with it. His stronger nature
+awes weaker natures into silence, or inspires them with his own will and
+purpose.
+
+The persistent man will not be baffled or repulsed by opposition.
+Diogenes, desirous of becoming the disciple of Antisthenes, went and
+offered himself to the cynic. He was refused. Diogenes still persisting,
+the cynic raised his knotty staff, and threatened to strike him if he
+did not depart. "Strike!" said Diogenes; "you will not find a stick
+hard enough to conquer my perseverance." Antisthenes, overcome, had not
+another word to say, but forthwith accepted him as his pupil.
+
+Energy of temperament, with a moderate degree of wisdom, will carry a
+man further than any amount of intellect without it. Energy makes the
+man of practical ability. It gives him VIS, force, MOMENTUM. It is the
+active motive power of character; and if combined with sagacity and
+self-possession, will enable a man to employ his powers to the best
+advantage in all the affairs of life.
+
+Hence it is that, inspired by energy of purpose, men of comparatively
+mediocre powers have often been enabled to accomplish such extraordinary
+results. For the men who have most powerfully influenced the world have
+not been so much men of genius as men of strong convictions and enduring
+capacity for work, impelled by irresistible energy and invincible
+determination: such men, for example, as were Mahomet, Luther, Knox,
+Calvin, Loyola, and Wesley.
+
+Courage, combined with energy and perseverance, will overcome
+difficulties apparently insurmountable. It gives force and impulse to
+effort, and does not permit it to retreat. Tyndall said of Faraday, that
+"in his warm moments he formed a resolution, and in his cool ones
+he made that resolution good." Perseverance, working in the right
+direction, grows with time, and when steadily practised, even by the
+most humble, will rarely fail of its reward. Trusting in the help of
+others is of comparatively little use. When one of Michael Angelo's
+principal patrons died, he said: "I begin to understand that the
+promises of the world are for the most part vain phantoms, and that to
+confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value, is the
+best and safest course."
+
+Courage is by no means incompatible with tenderness. On the contrary,
+gentleness and tenderness have been found to characterise the men,
+not less than the women, who have done the most courageous deeds. Sir
+Charles Napier gave up sporting, because he could not bear to hurt dumb
+creatures. The same gentleness and tenderness characterised his brother,
+Sir William, the historian of the Peninsular War. [1410] Such also was the
+character of Sir James Outram, pronounced by Sir Charles Napier to be
+"the Bayard of India, SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE"--one of the bravest
+and yet gentlest of men; respectful and reverent to women, tender to
+children, helpful of the weak, stern to the corrupt, but kindly as
+summer to the honest and deserving. Moreover, he was himself as honest
+as day, and as pure as virtue. Of him it might be said with truth, what
+Fulke Greville said of Sidney: "He was a true model of worth--a man
+fit for conquest, reformation, plantation, or what action soever is the
+greatest and hardest among men; his chief ends withal being above all
+things the good of his fellows, and the service of his sovereign and
+country."
+
+When Edward the Black Prince won the Battle of Poictiers, in which he
+took prisoner the French king and his son, he entertained them in the
+evening at a banquet, when he insisted on waiting upon and serving them
+at table. The gallant prince's knightly courtesy and demeanour won
+the hearts of his captives as completely as his valour had won their
+persons; for, notwithstanding his youth, Edward was a true knight, the
+first and bravest of his time--a noble pattern and example of chivalry;
+his two mottoes, 'Hochmuth' and 'Ich dien' [14high spirit and reverent
+service] not inaptly expressing his prominent and pervading qualities.
+
+It is the courageous man who can best afford to be generous; or rather,
+it is his nature to be so. When Fairfax, at the Battle of Naseby, seized
+the colours from an ensign whom he had struck down in the fight, he
+handed them to a common soldier to take care of. The soldier, unable
+to resist the temptation, boasted to his comrades that he had himself
+seized the colours, and the boast was repeated to Fairfax. "Let him
+retain the honour," said the commander; "I have enough beside."
+
+So when Douglas, at the Battle of Bannockburn, saw Randolph, his rival,
+outnumbered and apparently overpowered by the enemy, he prepared to
+hasten to his assistance; but, seeing that Randolph was already driving
+them back, he cried out, "Hold and halt! We are come too late to aid
+them; let us not lessen the victory they have won by affecting to claim
+a share in it."
+
+Quite as chivalrous, though in a very different field of action, was the
+conduct of Laplace to the young philosopher Biot, when the latter had
+read to the French Academy his paper, "SUR LES EQUATIONS AUX DIFFERENCE
+MELEES." The assembled SAVANS, at its close, felicitated the reader
+of the paper on his originality. Monge was delighted at his success.
+Laplace also praised him for the clearness of his demonstrations, and
+invited Biot to accompany him home. Arrived there, Laplace took from a
+closet in his study a paper, yellow with age, and handed it to the
+young philosopher. To Biot's surprise, he found that it contained
+the solutions, all worked out, for which he had just gained so much
+applause. With rare magnanimity, Laplace withheld all knowledge of the
+circumstance from Biot until the latter had initiated his reputation
+before the Academy; moreover, he enjoined him to silence; and the
+incident would have remained a secret had not Biot himself published it,
+some fifty years afterwards.
+
+An incident is related of a French artisan, exhibiting the same
+characteristic of self-sacrifice in another form. In front of a lofty
+house in course of erection at Paris was the usual scaffold, loaded with
+men and materials. The scaffold, being too weak, suddenly broke down,
+and the men upon it were precipitated to the ground--all except two, a
+young man and a middle-aged one, who hung on to a narrow ledge, which
+trembled under their weight, and was evidently on the point of giving
+way. "Pierre," cried the elder of the two, "let go; I am the father of a
+family." "C'EST JUSTE!" said Pierre; and, instantly letting go his hold,
+he fell and was killed on the spot. The father of the family was saved.
+
+The brave man is magnanimous as well as gentle. He does not take even an
+enemy at a disadvantage, nor strike a man when he is down and unable
+to defend himself. Even in the midst of deadly strife such instances
+of generosity have not been uncommon. Thus, at the Battle of Dettingen,
+during the heat of the action, a squadron of French cavalry charged an
+English regiment; but when the young French officer who led them, and
+was about to attack the English leader, observed that he had only
+one arm, with which he held his bridle, the Frenchman saluted him
+courteously with his sword, and passed on. [1411]
+
+It is related of Charles V., that after the siege and capture of
+Wittenburg by the Imperialist army, the monarch went to see the tomb
+of Luther. While reading the inscription on it, one of the servile
+courtiers who accompanied him proposed to open the grave, and give the
+ashes of the "heretic" to the winds. The monarch's cheek flushed with
+honest indignation: "I war not with the dead," said he; "let this place
+be respected."
+
+The portrait which the great heathen, Aristotle, drew of the Magnanimous
+Man, in other words the True Gentleman, more than two thousand years
+ago, is as faithful now as it was then. "The magnanimous man," he said,
+"will behave with moderation under both good fortune and bad. He
+will know how to be exalted and how to be abased. He will neither be
+delighted with success nor grieved by failure. He will neither shun
+danger nor seek it, for there are few things which he cares for. He is
+reticent, and somewhat slow of speech, but speaks his mind openly and
+boldly when occasion calls for it. He is apt to admire, for nothing
+is great to him. He overlooks injuries. He is not given to talk about
+himself or about others; for he does not care that he himself should
+be praised, or that other people should be blamed. He does not cry out
+about trifles, and craves help from none."
+
+On the other hand, mean men admire meanly. They have neither modesty,
+generosity, nor magnanimity. They are ready to take advantage of the
+weakness or defencelessness of others, especially where they have
+themselves succeeded, by unscrupulous methods, in climbing to positions
+of authority. Snobs in high places are always much less tolerable than
+snobs of low degree, because they have more frequent opportunities of
+making their want of manliness felt. They assume greater airs, and are
+pretentious in all that they do; and the higher their elevation, the
+more conspicuous is the incongruity of their position. "The higher the
+monkey climbs," says the proverb, "the more he shows his tail."
+
+Much depends on the way in which a thing is done. An act which might
+be taken as a kindness if done in a generous spirit, when done in a
+grudging spirit, may be felt as stingy, if not harsh and even cruel.
+When Ben Jonson lay sick and in poverty, the king sent him a paltry
+message, accompanied by a gratuity. The sturdy plainspoken poet's reply
+was: "I suppose he sends me this because I live in an alley; tell him
+his soul lives in an alley."
+
+From what we have said, it will be obvious that to be of an enduring and
+courageous spirit, is of great importance in the formation of character.
+It is a source not only of usefulness in life, but of happiness. On the
+other hand, to be of a timid and, still more, of a cowardly nature is
+one of the greatest misfortunes. A. wise man was accustomed to say that
+one of the principal objects he aimed at in the education of his sons
+and daughters was to train them in the habit of fearing nothing so much
+as fear. And the habit of avoiding fear is, doubtless, capable of
+being trained like any other habit, such as the habit of attention, of
+diligence, of study, or of cheerfulness.
+
+Much of the fear that exists is the offspring of imagination, which
+creates the images of evils which MAY happen, but perhaps rarely do;
+and thus many persons who are capable of summoning up courage to
+grapple with and overcome real dangers, are paralysed or thrown
+into consternation by those which are imaginary. Hence, unless the
+imagination be held under strict discipline, we are prone to meet evils
+more than halfway--to suffer them by forestalment, and to assume the
+burdens which we ourselves create.
+
+Education in courage is not usually included amongst the branches of
+female training, and yet it is really of greater importance than either
+music, French, or the use of the globes. Contrary to the view of Sir
+Richard Steele, that women should be characterised by a "tender fear,"
+and "an inferiority which makes her lovely," we would have women
+educated in resolution and courage, as a means of rendering them more
+helpful, more self-reliant, and vastly more useful and happy.
+
+There is, indeed, nothing attractive in timidity, nothing loveable in
+fear. All weakness, whether of mind or body, is equivalent to deformity,
+and the reverse of interesting. Courage is graceful and dignified,
+whilst fear, in any form, is mean and repulsive. Yet the utmost
+tenderness and gentleness are consistent with courage. Ary Scheffer, the
+artist, once wrote to his daughter:-"Dear daughter, strive to be of good
+courage, to be gentle-hearted; these are the true qualities for woman.
+'Troubles' everybody must expect. There is but one way of looking at
+fate--whatever that be, whether blessings or afflictions--to behave with
+dignity under both. We must not lose heart, or it will be the worse both
+for ourselves and for those whom we love. To struggle, and again and
+again to renew the conflict--THIS is life's inheritance." [1412]
+
+In sickness and sorrow, none are braver and less complaining sufferers
+than women. Their courage, where their hearts are concerned, is indeed
+proverbial:
+
+      "Oh! femmes c'est a tort qu'on vous nommes timides,
+      A la voix de vos coeurs vous etes intrepides."
+
+Experience has proved that women can be as enduring as men, under the
+heaviest trials and calamities; but too little pains are taken to teach
+them to endure petty terrors and frivolous vexations with fortitude.
+Such little miseries, if petted and indulged, quickly run into sickly
+sensibility, and become the bane of their life, keeping themselves and
+those about them in a state of chronic discomfort.
+
+The best corrective of this condition of mind is wholesome moral and
+mental discipline. Mental strength is as necessary for the development
+of woman's character as of man's. It gives her capacity to deal with
+the affairs of life, and presence of mind, which enable her to act with
+vigour and effect in moments of emergency. Character, in a woman, as in
+a man, will always be found the best safeguard of virtue, the best nurse
+of religion, the best corrective of Time. Personal beauty soon passes;
+but beauty of mind and character increases in attractiveness the older
+it grows.
+
+Ben Jonson gives a striking portraiture of a noble woman in these
+lines:--
+
+   "I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet,
+      Free from that solemn vice of greatness, pride;
+    I meant each softed virtue there should meet,
+      Fit in that softer bosom to abide.
+    Only a learned and a manly soul,
+      I purposed her, that should with even powers,
+    The rock, the spindle, and the shears control
+      Of destiny, and spin her own free hours."
+
+The courage of woman is not the less true because it is for the most
+part passive. It is not encouraged by the cheers of the world, for it is
+mostly exhibited in the recesses of private life. Yet there are cases
+of heroic patience and endurance on the part of women which occasionally
+come to the light of day. One of the most celebrated instances in
+history is that of Gertrude Von der Wart. Her husband, falsely accused
+of being an accomplice in the murder of the Emperor Albert, was
+condemned to the most frightful of all punishments--to be broken alive
+on the wheel. With most profound conviction of her husband's innocence
+the faithful woman stood by his side to the last, watching over
+him during two days and nights, braving the empress's anger and the
+inclemency of the weather, in the hope of contributing to soothe his
+dying agonies. [1413]
+
+But women have not only distinguished themselves for their passive
+courage: impelled by affection, or the sense of duty, they have
+occasionally become heroic. When the band of conspirators, who sought
+the life of James II. of Scotland, burst into his lodgings at Perth, the
+king called to the ladies, who were in the chamber outside his room, to
+keep the door as well as they could, and give him time to escape. The
+conspirators had previously destroyed the locks of the doors, so
+that the keys could not be turned; and when they reached the ladies'
+apartment, it was found that the bar also had been removed. But, on
+hearing them approach, the brave Catherine Douglas, with the hereditary
+courage of her family, boldly thrust her arm across the door instead of
+the bar; and held it there until, her arm being broken, the conspirators
+burst into the room with drawn swords and daggers, overthrowing the
+ladies, who, though unarmed, still endeavoured to resist them.
+
+The defence of Lathom House by Charlotte de la Tremouille, the worthy
+descendant of William of Nassau and Admiral Coligny, was another
+striking instance of heroic bravery on the part of a noble woman. When
+summoned by the Parliamentary forces to surrender, she declared that
+she had been entrusted by her husband with the defence of the house,
+and that she could not give it up without her dear lord's orders, but
+trusted in God for protection and deliverance. In her arrangements for
+the defence, she is described as having "left nothing with her eye to
+be excused afterwards by fortune or negligence, and added to her former
+patience a most resolved fortitude." The brave lady held her house and
+home good against the enemy for a whole year--during three months of
+which the place was strictly besieged and bombarded--until at length the
+siege was raised, after a most gallant defence, by the advance of the
+Royalist army.
+
+Nor can we forget the courage of Lady Franklin, who persevered to the
+last, when the hopes of all others had died out, in prosecuting the
+search after the Franklin Expedition. On the occasion of the Royal
+Geographical Society determining to award the Founder's Medal to Lady
+Franklin, Sir Roderick Murchison observed, that in the course of a long
+friendship with her, he had abundant opportunities of observing and
+testing the sterling qualities of a woman who had proved herself worthy
+of the admiration of mankind. "Nothing daunted by failure after failure,
+through twelve long years of hope deferred, she had persevered, with
+a singleness of purpose and a sincere devotion which were truly
+unparalleled. And now that her one last expedition of the FOX, under the
+gallant M'Clintock, had realised the two great facts--that her husband
+had traversed wide seas unknown to former navigators, and died in
+discovering a north-west passage--then, surely, the adjudication of the
+medal would be hailed by the nation as one of the many recompences to
+which the widow of the illustrious Franklin was so eminently entitled."
+
+But that devotion to duty which marks the heroic character has more
+often been exhibited by women in deeds of charity and mercy. The greater
+part of these are never known, for they are done in private, out of the
+public sight, and for the mere love of doing good. Where fame has come
+to them, because of the success which has attended their labours in a
+more general sphere, it has come unsought and unexpected, and is often
+felt as a burden. Who has not heard of Mrs. Fry and Miss Carpenter
+as prison visitors and reformers; of Mrs. Chisholm and Miss Rye as
+promoters of emigration; and of Miss Nightingale and Miss Garrett as
+apostles of hospital nursing?
+
+That these women should have emerged from the sphere of private and
+domestic life to become leaders in philanthropy, indicates no small,
+degree of moral courage on their part; for to women, above all others,
+quiet and ease and retirement are most natural and welcome. Very few
+women step beyond the boundaries of home in search of a larger field of
+usefulness. But when they have desired one, they have had no difficulty
+in finding it. The ways in which men and women can help their neighbours
+are innumerable. It needs but the willing heart and ready hand. Most
+of the philanthropic workers we have named, however, have scarcely been
+influenced by choice. The duty lay in their way--it seemed to be the
+nearest to them--and they set about doing it without desire for fame, or
+any other reward but the approval of their own conscience.
+
+Among prison-visitors, the name of Sarah Martin is much less known than
+that of Mrs. Fry, although she preceded her in the work. How she was led
+to undertake it, furnishes at the same time an illustration of womanly
+trueheartedness and earnest womanly courage.
+
+Sarah Martin was the daughter of poor parents, and was left an orphan
+at an early age. She was brought up by her grandmother, at Caistor,
+near Yarmouth, and earned her living by going out to families as
+assistant-dressmaker, at a shilling a day. In 1819, a woman was tried
+and sentenced to imprisonment in Yarmouth Gaol, for cruelly beating and
+illusing her child, and her crime became the talk of the town. The young
+dressmaker was much impressed by the report of the trial, and the desire
+entered her mind of visiting the woman in gaol, and trying to reclaim
+her. She had often before, on passing the walls of the borough gaol,
+felt impelled to seek admission, with the object of visiting the
+inmates, reading the Scriptures to them, and endeavouring to lead them
+back to the society whose laws they had violated.
+
+At length she could not resist her impulse to visit the mother. She
+entered the gaol-porch, lifted the knocker, and asked the gaoler for
+admission. For some reason or other she was refused; but she returned,
+repeated her request, and this time she was admitted. The culprit mother
+shortly stood before her. When Sarah Martin told the motive of her
+visit, the criminal burst into tears, and thanked her. Those tears and
+thanks shaped the whole course of Sarah Martin's after-life; and the
+poor seamstress, while maintaining herself by her needle, continued to
+spend her leisure hours in visiting the prisoners, and endeavouring to
+alleviate their condition. She constituted herself their chaplain and
+schoolmistress, for at that time they had neither; she read to them from
+the Scriptures, and taught them to read and write. She gave up an entire
+day in the week for this purpose, besides Sundays, as well as other
+intervals of spare time, "feeling," she says, "that the blessing of God
+was upon her." She taught the women to knit, to sew, and to cut out;
+the sale of the articles enabling her to buy other materials, and to
+continue the industrial education thus begun. She also taught the men
+to make straw hats, men's and boys' caps, gray cotton shirts, and even
+patchwork--anything to keep them out of idleness, and from preying on
+their own thoughts. Out of the earnings of the prisoners in this way,
+she formed a fund, which she applied to furnishing them with work on
+their discharge; thus enabling them again to begin the world honestly,
+and at the same time affording her, as she herself says, "the advantage
+of observing their conduct."
+
+By attending too exclusively to this prison-work, however, Sarah
+Martin's dressmaking business fell off; and the question arose with
+her, whether in order to recover her business she was to suspend her
+prison-work. But her decision had already been made. "I had counted the
+cost," she said, "and my mind, was made up. If, whilst imparting
+truth to others, I became exposed to temporal want, the privations so
+momentary to an individual would not admit of comparison with following
+the Lord, in thus administering to others." She now devoted six or seven
+hours every day to the prisoners, converting what would otherwise have
+been a scene of dissolute idleness into a hive of orderly industry.
+Newly-admitted prisoners were sometimes refractory, but her persistent
+gentleness eventually won their respect and co-operation. Men old in
+years and crime, pert London pickpockets, depraved boys and dissolute
+sailors, profligate women, smugglers, poachers, and the promiscuous
+horde of criminals which usually fill the gaol of a seaport and county
+town, all submitted to the benign influence of this good woman; and
+under her eyes they might be seen, for the first time in their lives,
+striving to hold a pen, or to master the characters in a penny primer.
+She entered into their confidences--watched, wept, prayed, and felt
+for all by turns. She strengthened their good resolutions, cheered the
+hopeless and despairing, and endeavoured to put all, and hold all, in
+the right road of amendment.
+
+For more than twenty years this good and truehearted woman pursued her
+noble course, with little encouragement, and not much help; almost
+her only means of subsistence consisting in an annual income of ten or
+twelve pounds left by her grandmother, eked out by her little earnings
+at dressmaking. During the last two years of her ministrations, the
+borough magistrates of Yarmouth, knowing that her self-imposed labours
+saved them the expense of a schoolmaster and chaplain [14which they had
+become bound by law to appoint], made a proposal to her of an annual
+salary of 12L. a year; but they did it in so indelicate a manner as
+greatly to wound her sensitive feelings. She shrank from becoming the
+salaried official of the corporation, and bartering for money those
+serviced which had throughout been labours of love. But the Gaol
+Committee coarsely informed her, "that if they permitted her to visit
+the prison she must submit to their terms, or be excluded." For
+two years, therefore, she received the salary of 12L. a year--the
+acknowledgment of the Yarmouth corporation for her services as gaol
+chaplain and schoolmistress! She was now, however, becoming old and
+infirm, and the unhealthy atmosphere of the gaol did much towards
+finally disabling her. While she lay on her deathbed, she resumed
+the exercise of a talent she had occasionally practised before in her
+moments of leisure--the composition of sacred poetry. As works of art,
+they may not excite admiration; yet never were verses written truer in
+spirit, or fuller of Christian love. But her own life was a nobler poem
+than any she ever wrote--full of true courage, perseverance, charity,
+and wisdom. It was indeed a commentary upon her own words:
+
+      "The high desire that others may be blest
+       Savours of heaven."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.--SELF-CONTROL.
+
+
+     "Honour and profit do not always lie in the same sack."--
+     GEORGE HERBERT.
+
+     "The government of one's self is the only true freedom for
+     the Individual."--FREDERICK PERTHES.
+
+     "It is in length of patience, and endurance, and
+     forbearance, that so much of what is good in mankind and
+     womankind is shown."--ARTHUR HELPS.
+
+                      "Temperance, proof
+      Against all trials; industry severe
+      And constant as the motion of the day;
+      Stern self-denial round him spread, with shade
+      That might be deemed forbidding, did not there
+      All generous feelings flourish and rejoice;
+      Forbearance, charity indeed and thought,
+      And resolution competent to take
+      Out of the bosom of simplicity
+      All that her holy customs recommend."--WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+Self-control is only courage under another form. It may almost be
+regarded as the primary essence of character. It is in virtue of this
+quality that Shakspeare defines man as a being "looking before and
+after." It forms the chief distinction between man and the mere animal;
+and, indeed, there can be no true manhood without it.
+
+Self-control is at the root of all the virtues. Let a man give the reins
+to his impulses and passions, and from that moment he yields up his
+moral freedom. He is carried along the current of life, and becomes the
+slave of his strongest desire for the time being.
+
+To be morally free--to be more than an animal--man must be able to
+resist instinctive impulse, and this can only be done by the exercise
+of self-control. Thus it is this power which constitutes the real
+distinction between a physical and a moral life, and that forms the
+primary basis of individual character.
+
+In the Bible praise is given, not to the strong man who "taketh a city,"
+but to the stronger man who "ruleth his own spirit." This stronger
+man is he who, by discipline, exercises a constant control over his
+thoughts, his speech, and his acts. Nine-tenths of the vicious desires
+that degrade society, and which, when indulged, swell into the crimes
+that disgrace it, would shrink into insignificance before the advance of
+valiant self-discipline, self-respect, and self-control. By the watchful
+exercise of these virtues, purity of heart and mind become habitual, and
+the character is built up in chastity, virtue, and temperance.
+
+The best support of character will always be found in habit, which,
+according as the will is directed rightly or wrongly, as the case may
+be, will prove either a benignant ruler or a cruel despot. We may be its
+willing subject on the one hand, or its servile slave on the other. It
+may help us on the road to good, or it may hurry us on the road to ruin.
+
+Habit is formed by careful training. And it is astonishing how much
+can be accomplished by systematic discipline and drill. See how, for
+instance, out of the most unpromising materials--such as roughs
+picked up in the streets, or raw unkempt country lads taken from the
+plough--steady discipline and drill will bring out the unsuspected
+qualities of courage, endurance, and self-sacrifice; and how, in the
+field of battle, or even on the more trying occasions of perils
+by sea--such as the burning of the SARAH SANDS or the wreck of
+the BIRKENHEAD--such men, carefully disciplined, will exhibit the
+unmistakable characteristics of true bravery and heroism!
+
+Nor is moral discipline and drill less influential in the formation of
+character. Without it, there will be no proper system and order in the
+regulation of the life. Upon it depends the cultivation of the sense of
+self-respect, the education of the habit of obedience, the development
+of the idea of duty. The most self-reliant, self-governing man is always
+under discipline: and the more perfect the discipline, the higher will
+be his moral condition. He has to drill his desires, and keep them in
+subjection to the higher powers of his nature. They must obey the word
+of command of the internal monitor, the conscience--otherwise they will
+be but the mere slaves of their inclinations, the sport of feeling and
+impulse.
+
+"In the supremacy of self-control," says Herbert Spencer, "consists
+one of the perfections of the ideal man. Not to be impulsive--not to
+be spurred hither and thither by each desire that in turn comes
+uppermost--but to be self-restrained, self-balanced, governed by the
+joint decision of the feelings in council assembled, before whom every
+action shall have been fully debated and calmly determined--that it is
+which education, moral education at least, strives to produce." [151]
+
+The first seminary of moral discipline, and the best, as we have already
+shown, is the home; next comes the school, and after that the world, the
+great school of practical life. Each is preparatory to the other, and
+what the man or woman becomes, depends for the most part upon what has
+gone before. If they have enjoyed the advantage of neither the home nor
+the school, but have been allowed to grow up untrained, untaught, and
+undisciplined, then woe to themselves--woe to the society of which they
+form part!
+
+The best-regulated home is always that in which the discipline is the
+most perfect, and yet where it is the least felt. Moral discipline acts
+with the force of a law of nature. Those subject to it yield themselves
+to it unconsciously; and though it shapes and forms the whole character,
+until the life becomes crystallized in habit, the influence thus
+exercised is for the most part unseen and almost unfelt.
+
+The importance of strict domestic discipline is curiously illustrated
+by a fact mentioned in Mrs. Schimmelpenninck's Memoirs, to the following
+effect: that a lady who, with her husband, had inspected most of the
+lunatic asylums of England and the Continent, found the most numerous
+class of patients was almost always composed of those who had been
+only children, and whose wills had therefore rarely been thwarted
+or disciplined in early life; whilst those who were members of large
+families, and who had been trained in self-discipline, were far less
+frequent victims to the malady.
+
+Although the moral character depends in a great degree on temperament
+and on physical health, as well as on domestic and early training and
+the example of companions, it is also in the power of each individual to
+regulate, to restrain, and to discipline it by watchful and persevering
+self-control. A competent teacher has said of the propensities and
+habits, that they are as teachable as Latin and Greek, while they are
+much more essential to happiness.
+
+Dr. Johnson, though himself constitutionally prone to melancholy, and
+afflicted by it as few have been from his earliest years, said that "a
+man's being in a good or bad humour very much depends upon his will."
+We may train ourselves in a habit of patience and contentment on the
+one hand, or of grumbling and discontent on the other. We may accustom
+ourselves to exaggerate small evils, and to underestimate great
+blessings. We may even become the victim of petty miseries by giving way
+to them. Thus, we may educate ourselves in a happy disposition, as well
+as in a morbid one. Indeed, the habit of viewing things cheerfully, and
+of thinking about life hopefully, may be made to grow up in us like any
+other habit. [152] It was not an exaggerated estimate of Dr. Johnson to
+say, that the habit of looking at the best side of any event is worth
+far more than a thousand pounds a year.
+
+The religious man's life is pervaded by rigid self-discipline and
+self-restraint. He is to be sober and vigilant, to eschew evil and do
+good, to walk in the spirit, to be obedient unto death, to withstand
+in the evil day, and having done all, to stand; to wrestle against
+spiritual wickedness, and against the rulers of the darkness of this
+world; to be rooted and built up in faith, and not to be weary of
+well-doing; for in due season he shall reap, if he faint not.
+
+The man of business also must needs be subject to strict rule and
+system. Business, like life, is managed by moral leverage; success in
+both depending in no small degree upon that regulation of temper and
+careful self-discipline, which give a wise man not only a command over
+himself, but over others. Forbearance and self-control smooth the road
+of life, and open many ways which would otherwise remain closed. And so
+does self-respect: for as men respect themselves, so will they usually
+respect the personality of others.
+
+It is the same in politics as in business. Success in that sphere of
+life is achieved less by talent than by temper, less by genius than by
+character. If a man have not self-control, he will lack patience, be
+wanting in tact, and have neither the power of governing himself nor of
+managing others. When the quality most needed in a Prime Minister was
+the subject of conversation in the presence of Mr. Pitt, one of the
+speakers said it was "Eloquence;" another said it was "Knowledge;" and
+a third said it was "Toil," "No," said Pitt, "it is Patience!" And
+patience means self-control, a quality in which he himself was superb.
+His friend George Rose has said of him that he never once saw Pitt out
+of temper. [153] Yet, although patience is usually regarded as a "slow"
+virtue, Pitt combined with it the most extraordinary readiness, vigour,
+and rapidity of thought as well as action.
+
+It is by patience and self-control that the truly heroic character is
+perfected. These were among the most prominent characteristics of the
+great Hampden, whose noble qualities were generously acknowledged even
+by his political enemies. Thus Clarendon described him as a man of rare
+temper and modesty, naturally cheerful and vivacious, and above all, of
+a flowing courtesy. He was kind and intrepid, yet gentle, of unblameable
+conversation, and his heart glowed with love to all men. He was not a
+man of many words, but, being of unimpeachable character, every word
+he uttered carried weight. "No man had ever a greater power over
+himself.... He was very temperate in diet, and a supreme governor over
+all his passions and affections; and he had thereby great power over
+other men's." Sir Philip Warwick, another of his political opponents,
+incidentally describes his great influence in a certain debate: "We had
+catched at each other's locks, and sheathed our swords in each other's
+bowels, had not the sagacity and great calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a
+short speech, prevented it, and led us to defer our angry debate until
+the next morning."
+
+A strong temper is not necessarily a bad temper. But the stronger the
+temper, the greater is the need of self-discipline and self-control.
+Dr. Johnson says men grow better as they grow older, and improve with
+experience; but this depends upon the width, and depth, and generousness
+of their nature. It is not men's faults that ruin them so much as the
+manner in which they conduct themselves after the faults have been
+committed. The wise will profit by the suffering they cause, and eschew
+them for the future; but there are those on whom experience exerts no
+ripening influence, and who only grow narrower and bitterer and more
+vicious with time.
+
+What is called strong temper in a young man, often indicates a large
+amount of unripe energy, which will expend itself in useful work if the
+road be fairly opened to it. It is said of Stephen Gerard, a Frenchman,
+who pursued a remarkably successful career in the United States, that
+when he heard of a clerk with a strong temper, he would readily take him
+into his employment, and set him to work in a room by himself; Gerard
+being of opinion that such persons were the best workers, and that their
+energy would expend itself in work if removed from the temptation to
+quarrel.
+
+Strong temper may only mean a strong and excitable will. Uncontrolled,
+it displays itself in fitful outbreaks of passion; but controlled and
+held in subjection--like steam pent-up within the organised mechanism
+of a steam-engine, the use of which is regulated and controlled by
+slide-valves and governors and levers--it may become a source of
+energetic power and usefulness. Hence, some of the greatest characters
+in history have been men of strong temper, but of equally strong
+determination to hold their motive power under strict regulation and
+control.
+
+The famous Earl of Strafford was of an extremely choleric and passionate
+nature, and had great struggles with himself in his endeavours to
+control his temper. Referring to the advice of one of his friends, old
+Secretary Cooke, who was honest enough to tell him of his weakness,
+and to caution him against indulging it, he wrote: "You gave me a good
+lesson to be patient; and, indeed, my years and natural inclinations
+give me heat more than enough, which, however, I trust more experience
+shall cool, and a watch over myself in time altogether overcome; in the
+meantime, in this at least it will set forth itself more pardonable,
+because my earnestness shall ever be for the honour, justice, and profit
+of my master; and it is not always anger, but the misapplying of it,
+that is the vice so blameable, and of disadvantage to those that let
+themselves loose there-unto." [154]
+
+Cromwell, also, is described as having been of a wayward and violent
+temper in his youth--cross, untractable, and masterless--with a vast
+quantity of youthful energy, which exploded in a variety of youthful
+mischiefs. He even obtained the reputation of a roysterer in his native
+town, and seemed to be rapidly going to the bad, when religion, in one
+of its most rigid forms, laid hold upon his strong nature, and subjected
+it to the iron discipline of Calvinism. An entirely new direction was
+thus given to his energy of temperament, which forced an outlet for
+itself into public life, and eventually became the dominating influence
+in England for a period of nearly twenty years.
+
+The heroic princes of the House of Nassau were all distinguished for
+the same qualities of self-control, self-denial, and determination of
+purpose. William the Silent was so called, not because he was a taciturn
+man--for he was an eloquent and powerful speaker where eloquence was
+necessary--but because he was a man who could hold his tongue when it
+was wisdom not to speak, and because he carefully kept his own counsel
+when to have revealed it might have been dangerous to the liberties of
+his country. He was so gentle and conciliatory in his manner that his
+enemies even described him as timid and pusillanimous. Yet, when
+the time for action came, his courage was heroic, his determination
+unconquerable. "The rock in the ocean," says Mr. Motley, the historian
+of the Netherlands, "tranquil amid raging billows, was the favourite
+emblem by which his friends expressed their sense of his firmness."
+
+Mr. Motley compares William the Silent to Washington, whom he in many
+respects resembled. The American, like the Dutch patriot, stands out
+in history as the very impersonation of dignity, bravery, purity, and
+personal excellence. His command over his feelings, even in moments of
+great difficulty and danger, was such as to convey the impression,
+to those who did not know him intimately, that he was a man of inborn
+calmness and almost impassiveness of disposition. Yet Washington was by
+nature ardent and impetuous; his mildness, gentleness, politeness, and
+consideration for others, were the result of rigid self-control and
+unwearied self-discipline, which he diligently practised even from his
+boyhood. His biographer says of him, that "his temperament was ardent,
+his passions strong, and amidst the multiplied scenes of temptation
+and excitement through which he passed, it was his constant effort, and
+ultimate triumph, to check the one and subdue the other." And again:
+"His passions were strong, and sometimes they broke out with
+vehemence, but he had the power of checking them in an instant. Perhaps
+self-control was the most remarkable trait of his character. It was in
+part the effect of discipline; yet he seems by nature to have possessed
+this power in a degree which has been denied to other men." [15*5]
+
+The Duke of Wellington's natural temper, like that of Napoleon, was
+irritable in the extreme; and it was only by watchful self-control that
+he was enabled to restrain it. He studied calmness and coolness in the
+midst of danger, like any Indian chief. At Waterloo, and elsewhere,
+he gave his orders in the most critical moments, without the slightest
+excitement, and in a tone of voice almost more than usually subdued. [156]
+
+Wordsworth the poet was, in his childhood, "of a stiff, moody, and
+violent temper," and "perverse and obstinate in defying chastisement."
+When experience of life had disciplined his temper, he learnt to
+exercise greater self-control; but, at the same time, the qualities
+which distinguished him as a child were afterwards useful in enabling
+him to defy the criticism of his enemies. Nothing was more marked
+than Wordsworth's self-respect and self-determination, as well as his
+self-consciousness of power, at all periods of his history.
+
+Henry Martyn, the missionary, was another instance of a man in whom
+strength of temper was only so much pent-up, unripe energy. As a boy he
+was impatient, petulant, and perverse; but by constant wrestling against
+his tendency to wrongheadedness, he gradually gained the requisite
+strength, so as to entirely overcome it, and to acquire what he so
+greatly coveted--the gift of patience.
+
+A man may be feeble in organization, but, blessed with a happy
+temperament, his soul may be great, active, noble, and sovereign.
+Professor Tyndall has given us a fine picture of the character
+of Faraday, and of his self-denying labours in the cause of
+science--exhibiting him as a man of strong, original, and even fiery
+nature, and yet of extreme tenderness and sensibility. "Underneath his
+sweetness and gentleness," he says, "was the heat of a volcano. He was a
+man of excitable and fiery nature; but, through high self-discipline,
+he had converted the fire into a central glow and motive power of life,
+instead of permitting it to waste itself in useless passion."
+
+There was one fine feature in Faraday's character which is worthy of
+notice--one closely akin to self-control: it was his self-denial.
+By devoting himself to analytical chemistry, he might have speedily
+realised a large fortune; but he nobly resisted the temptation, and
+preferred to follow the path of pure science. "Taking the duration of
+his life into account," says Mr. Tyndall, "this son of a blacksmith and
+apprentice to a bookbinder had to decide between a fortune of L.150,000
+on the one side, and his undowered science on the other. He chose the
+latter, and died a poor man. But his was the glory of holding aloft
+among the nations the scientific name of England for a period of forty
+years." [157]
+
+Take a like instance of the self-denial of a Frenchman. The historian
+Anquetil was one of the small number of literary men in France who
+refused to bow to the Napoleonic yoke. He sank into great poverty,
+living on bread-and-milk, and limiting his expenditure to only three
+sous a day. "I have still two sous a day left," said he, "for the
+conqueror of Marengo and Austerlitz." "But if you fall sick," said
+a friend to him, "you will need the help of a pension. Why not do as
+others do? Pay court to the Emperor--you have need of him to live." "I
+do not need him to die," was the historian's reply. But Anquetil did not
+die of poverty; he lived to the age of ninety-four, saying to a friend,
+on the eve of his death, "Come, see a man who dies still full of life!"
+
+Sir James Outram exhibited the same characteristic of noble self-denial,
+though in an altogether different sphere of life. Like the great King
+Arthur, he was emphatically a man who "forbore his own advantage."
+He was characterised throughout his whole career by his noble
+unselfishness. Though he might personally disapprove of the policy he
+was occasionally ordered to carry out, he never once faltered in the
+path of duty. Thus he did not approve of the policy of invading Scinde;
+yet his services throughout the campaign were acknowledged by General
+Sir C. Napier to have been of the most brilliant character. But when the
+war was over, and the rich spoils of Scinde lay at the conqueror's feet,
+Outram said: "I disapprove of the policy of this war--I will accept no
+share of the prize-money!"
+
+Not less marked was his generous self-denial when despatched with a
+strong force to aid Havelock in fighting his way to Lucknow. As superior
+officer, he was entitled to take upon himself the chief command; but,
+recognising what Havelock had already done, with rare disinterestedness,
+he left to his junior officer the glory of completing the campaign,
+offering to serve under him as a volunteer. "With such reputation," said
+Lord Clyde, "as Major-General Outram has won for himself, he can afford
+to share glory and honour with others. But that does not lessen the
+value of the sacrifice he has made with such disinterested generosity."
+
+If a man would get through life honourably and peaceably, he must
+necessarily learn to practise self-denial in small things as well as
+great. Men have to bear as well as forbear. The temper has to be held
+in subjection to the judgment; and the little demons of ill-humour,
+petulance, and sarcasm, kept resolutely at a distance. If once they find
+an entrance to the mind, they are very apt to return, and to establish
+for themselves a permanent occupation there.
+
+It is necessary to one's personal happiness, to exercise control over
+one's words as well as acts: for there are words that strike even harder
+than blows; and men may "speak daggers," though they use none. "UN COUP
+DE LANGUE," says the French proverb, "EST PIRE QU'UN COUP DE LANCE." The
+stinging repartee that rises to the lips, and which, if uttered, might
+cover an adversary with confusion, how difficult it sometimes is to
+resist saying it! "Heaven keep us," says Miss Bremer in her 'Home,'
+"from the destroying power of words! There are words which sever hearts
+more than sharp swords do; there are words the point of which sting the
+heart through the course of a whole life."
+
+Thus character exhibits itself in self-control of speech as much as in
+anything else. The wise and forbearant man will restrain his desire to
+say a smart or severe thing at the expense of another's feelings; while
+the fool blurts out what he thinks, and will sacrifice his friend rather
+than his joke. "The mouth of a wise man," said Solomon, "is in his
+heart; the heart of a fool is in his mouth."
+
+There are, however, men who are no fools, that are headlong in their
+language as in their acts, because of their want of forbearance and
+self-restraining patience. The impulsive genius, gifted with quick
+thought and incisive speech--perhaps carried away by the cheers of the
+moment--lets fly a sarcastic sentence which may return upon him to his
+own infinite damage. Even statesmen might be named, who have failed
+through their inability to resist the temptation of saying clever and
+spiteful things at their adversary's expense. "The turn of a sentence,"
+says Bentham, "has decided the fate of many a friendship, and, for aught
+that we know, the fate of many a kingdom." So, when one is tempted to
+write a clever but harsh thing, though it may be difficult to restrain
+it, it is always better to leave it in the inkstand. "A goose's quill,"
+says the Spanish proverb, "often hurts more than a lion's claw."
+
+Carlyle says, when speaking of Oliver Cromwell, "He that cannot withal
+keep his mind to himself, cannot practise any considerable thing
+whatsoever." It was said of William the Silent, by one of his greatest
+enemies, that an arrogant or indiscreet word was never known to fall
+from his lips. Like him, Washington was discretion itself in the use of
+speech, never taking advantage of an opponent, or seeking a shortlived
+triumph in a debate. And it is said that in the long run, the world
+comes round to and supports the wise man who knows when and how to be
+silent.
+
+We have heard men of great experience say that they have often regretted
+having spoken, but never once regretted holding their tongue. "Be
+silent," says Pythagoras, "or say something better than silence." "Speak
+fitly," says George Herbert, "or be silent wisely." St. Francis de
+Sales, whom Leigh Hunt styled "the Gentleman Saint," has said: "It is
+better to remain silent than to speak the truth ill-humouredly, and
+so spoil an excellent dish by covering it with bad sauce." Another
+Frenchman, Lacordaire, characteristically puts speech first, and silence
+next. "After speech," he says, "silence is the greatest power in the
+world." Yet a word spoken in season, how powerful it may be! As the old
+Welsh proverb has it, "A golden tongue is in the mouth of the blessed."
+
+It is related, as a remarkable instance of self-control on the part of
+De Leon, a distinguished Spanish poet of the sixteenth century, who lay
+for years in the dungeons of the Inquisition without light or society,
+because of his having translated a part of the Scriptures into
+his native tongue, that on being liberated and restored to his
+professorship, an immense crowd attended his first lecture, expecting
+some account of his long imprisonment; but Do Leon was too wise and too
+gentle to indulge in recrimination. He merely resumed the lecture which,
+five years before, had been so sadly interrupted, with the accustomed
+formula "HERI DICEBAMUS," and went directly into his subject.
+
+There are, of course, times and occasions when the expression of
+indignation is not only justifiable but necessary. We are bound to be
+indignant at falsehood, selfishness, and cruelty. A man of true feeling
+fires up naturally at baseness or meanness of any sort, even in cases
+where he may be under no obligation to speak out. "I would have nothing
+to do," said Perthes, "with the man who cannot be moved to indignation.
+There are more good people than bad in the world, and the bad get the
+upper hand merely because they are bolder. We cannot help being pleased
+with a man who uses his powers with decision; and we often take his side
+for no other reason than because he does so use them. No doubt, I have
+often repented speaking; but not less often have I repented keeping
+silence." [158]
+
+One who loves right cannot be indifferent to wrong, or wrongdoing. If he
+feels warmly, he will speak warmly, out of the fulness of his heart. As
+a noble lady [159] has written:
+
+      "A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn--
+      To scorn to owe a duty overlong,
+      To scorn to be for benefits forborne,
+      To scorn to lie, to scorn to do a wrong,
+      To scorn to bear an injury in mind,
+      To scorn a freeborn heart slave-like to bind."
+
+We have, however, to be on our guard against impatient scorn. The best
+people are apt to have their impatient side; and often, the very temper
+which makes men earnest, makes them also intolerant. [1510] "Of all mental
+gifts," says Miss Julia Wedgwood, "the rarest is intellectual patience;
+and the last lesson of culture is to believe in difficulties which are
+invisible to ourselves."
+
+The best corrective of intolerance in disposition, is increase of wisdom
+and enlarged experience of life. Cultivated good sense will usually save
+men from the entanglements in which moral impatience is apt to involve
+them; good sense consisting chiefly in that temper of mind which enables
+its possessor to deal with the practical affairs of life with justice,
+judgment, discretion, and charity. Hence men of culture and experience
+are invariably, found the most forbearant and tolerant, as ignorant and
+narrowminded persons are found the most unforgiving and intolerant. Men
+of large and generous natures, in proportion to their practical wisdom,
+are disposed to make allowance for the defects and disadvantages of
+others--allowance for the controlling power of circumstances in the
+formation of character, and the limited power of resistance of weak and
+fallible natures to temptation and error. "I see no fault committed,"
+said Goethe, "which I also might not have committed." So a wise and good
+man exclaimed, when he saw a criminal drawn on his hurdle to Tyburn:
+"There goes Jonathan Bradford--but for the grace of God!"
+
+Life will always be, to a great extent, what we ourselves make it. The
+cheerful man makes a cheerful world, the gloomy man a gloomy one. We
+usually find but our own temperament reflected in the dispositions of
+those about us. If we are ourselves querulous, we will find them so; if
+we are unforgiving and uncharitable to them, they will be the same to
+us. A person returning from an evening party not long ago, complained to
+a policeman on his beat that an ill-looking fellow was following him: it
+turned out to be only his own shadow! And such usually is human life to
+each of us; it is, for the most part, but the reflection of ourselves.
+
+If we would be at peace with others, and ensure their respect, we must
+have regard for their personality. Every man has his peculiarities of
+manner and character, as he has peculiarities of form and feature; and
+we must have forbearance in dealing with them, as we expect them to
+have forbearance in dealing with us. We may not be conscious of our own
+peculiarities, yet they exist nevertheless. There is a village in South
+America where gotos or goitres are so common that to be without one is
+regarded as a deformity. One day a party of Englishmen passed through
+the place, when quite a crowd collected to jeer them, shouting: "See,
+see these people--they have got NO GOTOS!"
+
+Many persons give themselves a great deal of fidget concerning what
+other people think of them and their peculiarities. Some are too much
+disposed to take the illnatured side, and, judging by themselves, infer
+the worst. But it is very often the case that the uncharitableness of
+others, where it really exists, is but the reflection of our own want of
+charity and want of temper. It still oftener happens, that the worry we
+subject ourselves to, has its source in our own imagination. And even
+though those about us may think of us uncharitably, we shall not mend
+matters by exasperating ourselves against them. We may thereby only
+expose ourselves unnecessarily to their illnature or caprice. "The ill
+that comes out of our mouth," says Herbert, "ofttimes falls into our
+bosom."
+
+The great and good philosopher Faraday communicated the following piece
+of admirable advice, full of practical wisdom, the result of a rich
+experience of life, in a letter to his friend Professor Tyndall:-
+"Let me, as an old man, who ought by this time to have profited by
+experience, say that when I was younger I found I often misrepresented
+the intentions of people, and that they did not mean what at the time I
+supposed they meant; and further, that, as a general rule, it was better
+to be a little dull of apprehension where phrases seemed to imply pique,
+and quick in perception when, on the contrary, they seemed to imply
+kindly feeling. The real truth never fails ultimately to appear;
+and opposing parties, if wrong, are sooner convinced when replied to
+forbearingly, than when overwhelmed. All I mean to say is, that it is
+better to be blind to the results of partisanship, and quick to see
+goodwill. One has more happiness in one's self in endeavouring to follow
+the things that make for peace. You can hardly imagine how often I have
+been heated in private when opposed, as I have thought unjustly and
+superciliously, and yet I have striven, and succeeded, I hope, in
+keeping down replies of the like kind. And I know I have never lost by
+it." [1511]
+
+While the painter Barry was at Rome, he involved himself, as was
+his wont, in furious quarrels with the artists and dilettanti, about
+picture-painting and picture-dealing, upon which his friend and
+countryman, Edmund Burke--always the generous friend of struggling
+merit--wrote to him kindly and sensibly: "Believe me, dear Barry,
+that the arms with which the ill-dispositions of the world are to be
+combated, and the qualities by which it is to be reconciled to us, and
+we reconciled to it, are moderation, gentleness, a little indulgence
+to others, and a great deal of distrust of ourselves; which are not
+qualities of a mean spirit, as some may possibly think them, but virtues
+of a great and noble kind, and such as dignify our nature as much
+as they contribute to our repose and fortune; for nothing can be so
+unworthy of a well-composed soul as to pass away life in bickerings and
+litigations--in snarling and scuffling with every one about us. We must
+be at peace with our species, if not for their sakes, at least very much
+for our own." [1512]
+
+No one knew the value of self-control better than the poet Burns, and
+no one could teach it more eloquently to others; but when it came to
+practice, Burns was as weak as the weakest. He could not deny himself
+the pleasure of uttering a harsh and clever sarcasm at another's
+expense. One of his biographers observes of him, that it was no
+extravagant arithmetic to say that for every ten jokes he made himself
+a hundred enemies. But this was not all. Poor Burns exercised no control
+over his appetites, but freely gave them rein:
+
+      "Thus thoughtless follies laid him low
+             And stained his name."
+
+Nor had he the self-denial to resist giving publicity to compositions
+originally intended for the delight of the tap-room, but which continue
+secretly to sow pollution broadcast in the minds of youth. Indeed,
+notwithstanding the many exquisite poems of this writer, it is not
+saying too much to aver that his immoral writings have done far more
+harm than his purer writings have done good; and that it would be better
+that all his writings should be destroyed and forgotten provided his
+indecent songs could be destroyed with them.
+
+The remark applies alike to Beranger, who has been styled "The Burns
+of France." Beranger was of the same bright incisive genius; he had
+the same love of pleasure, the same love of popularity; and while he
+flattered French vanity to the top of its bent, he also painted the
+vices most loved by his countrymen with the pen of a master. Beranger's
+songs and Thiers' History probably did more than anything else to
+reestablish the Napoleonic dynasty in France. But that was a small evil
+compared with the moral mischief which many of Beranger's songs are
+calculated to produce; for, circulating freely as they do in French
+households, they exhibit pictures of nastiness and vice, which are
+enough to pollute and destroy a nation.
+
+One of Burns's finest poems, written, in his twenty-eighth year, is
+entitled 'A Bard's Epitaph.' It is a description, by anticipation, of
+his own life. Wordsworth has said of it: "Here is a sincere and solemn
+avowal; a public declaration from his own will; a confession at once
+devout, poetical and human; a history in the shape of a prophecy." It
+concludes with these lines:--
+
+      "Reader, attend--whether thy soul
+       Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole,
+       Or darkling grubs this earthly hole
+                           In low pursuit;
+       Know--prudent, cautious self-control,
+                           Is Wisdom's root."
+
+One of the vices before which Burns fell--and it may be said to be
+a master-vice, because it is productive of so many other vices--was
+drinking. Not that he was a drunkard, but because he yielded to the
+temptations of drink, with its degrading associations, and thereby
+lowered and depraved his whole nature. [1513] But poor Burns did not stand
+alone; for, alas! of all vices, the unrestrained appetite for drink was
+in his time, as it continues to be now, the most prevalent, popular,
+degrading, and destructive.
+
+Were it possible to conceive the existence of a tyrant who should compel
+his people to give up to him one-third or more of their earnings,
+and require them at the same time to consume a commodity that should
+brutalise and degrade them, destroy the peace and comfort of their
+families, and sow in themselves the seeds of disease and premature
+death--what indignation meetings, what monster processions there
+would be! 'What eloquent speeches and apostrophes to the spirit
+of liberty!--what appeals against a despotism so monstrous and so
+unnatural! And yet such a tyrant really exists amongst us--the tyrant
+of unrestrained appetite, whom no force of arms, or voices, or votes can
+resist, while men are willing to be his slaves.
+
+The power of this tyrant can only be overcome by moral means--by
+self-discipline, self-respect, and self-control. There is no other way
+of withstanding the despotism of appetite in any of its forms. No
+reform of institutions, no extended power of voting, no improved form
+of government, no amount of scholastic instruction, can possibly elevate
+the character of a people who voluntarily abandon themselves to sensual
+indulgence. The pursuit of ignoble pleasure is the degradation of true
+happiness; it saps the morals, destroys the energies, and degrades the
+manliness and robustness of individuals as of nations.
+
+The courage of self-control exhibits itself in many ways, but in
+none more clearly than in honest living. Men without the virtue of
+self-denial are not only subject to their own selfish desires, but they
+are usually in bondage to others who are likeminded with themselves.
+What others do, they do. They must live according to the artificial
+standard of their class, spending like their neighbours, regardless of
+the consequences, at the same time that all are, perhaps, aspiring after
+a style of living higher than their means. Each carries the others
+along with him, and they have not the moral courage to stop. They cannot
+resist the temptation of living high, though it may be at the expense
+of others; and they gradually become reckless of debt, until it enthrals
+them. In all this there is great moral cowardice, pusillanimity, and
+want of manly independence of character.
+
+A rightminded man will shrink from seeming to be what he is not, or
+pretending to be richer than he really is, or assuming a style of living
+that his circumstances will not justify. He will have the courage to
+live honestly within his own means, rather than dishonestly upon the
+means of other people; for he who incurs debts in striving to maintain a
+style of living beyond his income, is in spirit as dishonest as the man
+who openly picks your pocket.
+
+To many, this may seem an extreme view, but it will bear the strictest
+test. Living at the cost of others is not only dishonesty, but it is
+untruthfulness in deed, as lying is in word. The proverb of George
+Herbert, that "debtors are liars," is justified by experience.
+Shaftesbury somewhere says that a restlessness to have something which
+we have not, and to be something which we are not, is the root of all
+immorality. [1514] No reliance is to be placed on the saying--a very
+dangerous one--of Mirabeau, that "LA PETITE MORALE ETAIT L'ENNEMIE DE LA
+GRANDE." On the contrary, strict adherence to even the smallest details
+of morality is the foundation of all manly and noble character.
+
+The honourable man is frugal of his means, and pays his way honestly. He
+does not seek to pass himself off as richer than he is, or, by running
+into debt, open an account with ruin. As that man is not poor whose
+means are small, but whose desires are uncontrolled, so that man is rich
+whose means are more than sufficient for his wants. When Socrates saw a
+great quantity of riches, jewels, and furniture of great value, carried
+in pomp through Athens, he said, "Now do I see how many things I do NOT
+desire." "I can forgive everything but selfishness," said Perthes. "Even
+the narrowest circumstances admit of greatness with reference to 'mine
+and thine'; and none but the very poorest need fill their daily life
+with thoughts of money, if they have but prudence to arrange their
+housekeeping within the limits of their income."
+
+A man may be indifferent to money because of higher considerations, as
+Faraday was, who sacrificed wealth to pursue science; but if he would
+have the enjoyments that money can purchase, he must honestly earn it,
+and not live upon the earnings of others, as those do who habitually
+incur debts which they have no means of paying. When Maginn, always
+drowned in debt, was asked what he paid for his wine, he replied that he
+did not know, but he believed they "put something down in a book." [1515]
+
+This "putting-down in a book" has proved the ruin of a great many
+weakminded people, who cannot resist the temptation of taking things
+upon credit which they have not the present means of paying for; and it
+would probably prove of great social benefit if the law which enables
+creditors to recover debts contracted under certain circumstances
+were altogether abolished. But, in the competition for trade, every
+encouragement is given to the incurring of debt, the creditor relying
+upon the law to aid him in the last extremity. When Sydney Smith once
+went into a new neighbourhood, it was given out in the local papers that
+he was a man of high connections, and he was besought on all sides for
+his "custom." But he speedily undeceived his new neighbours. "We are not
+great people at all," he said: "we are only common honest people--people
+that pay our debts."
+
+Hazlitt, who was a thoroughly honest though rather thriftless man,
+speaks of two classes of persons, not unlike each other--those who
+cannot keep their own money in their hands, and those who cannot keep
+their hands from other people's. The former are always in want of money,
+for they throw it away on any object that first presents itself, as if
+to get rid of it; the latter make away with what they have of their own,
+and are perpetual borrowers from all who will lend to them; and their
+genius for borrowing, in the long run, usually proves their ruin.
+
+Sheridan was one of such eminent unfortunates. He was impulsive and
+careless in his expenditure, borrowing money, and running into debt
+with everybody who would trust him. When he stood for Westminster, his
+unpopularity arose chiefly from his general indebtedness. "Numbers of
+poor people," says Lord Palmerston in one of his letters, "crowded round
+the hustings, demanding payment for the bills he owed them." In the
+midst of all his difficulties, Sheridan was as lighthearted as ever, and
+cracked many a good joke at his creditors' expense. Lord Palmerston was
+actually present at the dinner given by him, at which the sheriff's in
+possession were dressed up and officiated as waiters
+
+Yet however loose Sheridan's morality may have been as regarded
+his private creditors, he was honest so far as the public money was
+concerned. Once, at dinner, at which Lord Byron happened to be present,
+an observation happened to be made as to the sturdiness of the Whigs
+in resisting office, and keeping to their principles--on which Sheridan
+turned sharply and said: "Sir, it is easy for my Lord this, or Earl
+that, or the Marquis of t'other, with thousands upon thousands a
+year, some of it either presently derived or inherited in sinecure or
+acquisitions from the public money, to boast of their patriotism, and
+keep aloof from temptation; but they do not know from what temptation
+those have kept aloof who had equal pride, at least equal talents, and
+not unequal passions, and nevertheless knew not, in the course of their
+lives, what it was to have a shilling of their own." And Lord Byron
+adds, that, in saying this, Sheridan wept. [1516]
+
+The tone of public morality in money-matters was very low in those days.
+Political peculation was not thought discreditable; and heads of parties
+did not hesitate to secure the adhesion of their followers by a free
+use of the public money. They were generous, but at the expense of
+others--like that great local magnate, who,
+
+         "Out of his great bounty,
+      Built a bridge at the expense of the county."
+
+When Lord Cornwallis was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland,
+he pressed upon Colonel Napier, the father of THE Napiers, the
+comptrollership of army accounts. "I want," said his Lordship, "AN
+HONEST MAN, and this is the only thing I have been able to wrest from
+the harpies around me."
+
+It is said that Lord Chatham was the first to set the example of
+disdaining to govern by petty larceny; and his great son was alike
+honest in his administration. While millions of money were passing
+through Pitt's hands, he himself was never otherwise than poor; and he
+died poor. Of all his rancorous libellers, not one ever ventured to call
+in question his honesty.
+
+In former times, the profits of office were sometimes enormous. When
+Audley, the famous annuity-monger of the sixteenth century, was asked
+the value of an office which he had purchased in the Court of Wards,
+he replied:--"Some thousands to any one who wishes to get to heaven
+immediately; twice as much to him who does not mind being in purgatory;
+and nobody knows what to him who is not afraid of the devil."
+
+Sir Walter Scott was a man who was honest to the core of his nature and
+his strenuous and determined efforts to pay his debts, or rather the
+debts of the firm with which he had become involved, has always appeared
+to us one of the grandest things in biography. When his publisher and
+printer broke down, ruin seemed to stare him in the face. There was
+no want of sympathy for him in his great misfortune, and friends came
+forward who offered to raise money enough to enable him to arrange with
+his creditors. "No! "said he, proudly; "this right hand shall work it
+all off!" "If we lose everything else," he wrote to a friend, "we will
+at least keep our honour unblemished." [1517] While his health was already
+becoming undermined by overwork, he went on "writing like a tiger," as
+he himself expressed it, until no longer able to wield a pen; and
+though he paid the penalty of his supreme efforts with his life, he
+nevertheless saved his honour and his self-respect.
+
+Everybody knows bow Scott threw off 'Woodstock,' the 'Life of
+Napoleon' [15which he thought would be his death [1518]], articles for the
+'Quarterly,' 'Chronicles of the Canongate,' 'Prose Miscellanies,' and
+'Tales of a Grandfather'--all written in the midst of pain, sorrow,
+and ruin. The proceeds of those various works went to his creditors.
+"I could not have slept sound," he wrote, "as I now can, under the
+comfortable impression of receiving the thanks of my creditors, and the
+conscious feeling of discharging my duty as a man of honour and
+honesty. I see before me a long, tedious, and dark path, but it leads
+to stainless reputation. If I die in the harrows, as is very likely, I
+shall die with honour. If I achieve my task, I shall have the thanks of
+all concerned, and the approbation of my own conscience." [1519]
+
+And then followed more articles, memoirs, and even sermons--'The Fair
+Maid of Perth,' a completely revised edition of his novels, 'Anne of
+Geierstein,' and more 'Tales of a Grandfather'--until he was suddenly
+struck down by paralysis. But he had no sooner recovered sufficient
+strength to be able to hold a pen, than we find him again at his desk
+writing the 'Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft,' a volume of Scottish
+History for 'Lardner's Cyclopaedia,' and a fourth series of 'Tales of a
+Grandfather' in his French History. In vain his doctors told him to give
+up work; he would not be dissuaded. "As for bidding me not work," he
+said to Dr. Abercrombie, "Molly might just as well put the kettle on the
+fire and say, 'Now, kettle, don't boil;'" to which he added, "If I were
+to be idle I should go mad!"
+
+By means of the profits realised by these tremendous efforts, Scott saw
+his debts in course of rapid diminution, and he trusted that, after a
+few more years' work, he would again be a free man. But it was not to
+be. He went on turning out such works as his 'Count Robert of Paris'
+with greatly impaired skill, until he was prostrated by another and
+severer attack of palsy. He now felt that the plough was nearing the end
+of the furrow; his physical strength was gone; he was "not quite himself
+in all things," and yet his courage and perseverance never failed. "I
+have suffered terribly," he wrote in his Diary, "though rather in
+body than in mind, and I often wish I could lie down and sleep
+without waking. But I WILL FIGHT IT OUT IF I CAN." He again recovered
+sufficiently to be able to write 'Castle Dangerous,' though the cunning
+of the workman's hand had departed. And then there was his last tour to
+Italy in search of rest and health, during which, while at Naples, in
+spite of all remonstrances, he gave several hours every morning to the
+composition of a new novel, which, however, has not seen the light.
+
+Scott returned to Abbotsford to die. "I have seen much," he said on his
+return, "but nothing like my own house--give me one turn more." One of
+the last things he uttered, in one of his lucid intervals, was worthy of
+him. "I have been," he said, "perhaps the most voluminous author of my
+day, and it IS a comfort to me to think that I have tried to unsettle
+no man's faith, to corrupt no man's principles, and that I have written
+nothing which on my deathbed I should wish blotted out." His last
+injunction to his son-in-law was: "Lockhart, I may have but a minute to
+speak to you. My dear, be virtuous--be religious--be a good man. Nothing
+else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here."
+
+The devoted conduct of Lockhart himself was worthy of his great
+relative. The 'Life of Scott,' which he afterwards wrote, occupied him
+several years, and was a remarkably successful work. Yet he himself
+derived no pecuniary advantage from it; handing over the profits of the
+whole undertaking to Sir Walter's creditors in payment of debts which
+he was in no way responsible, but influenced entirely by a spirit of
+honour, of regard for the memory of the illustrious dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.--DUTY--TRUTHFULNESS.
+
+
+
+     "I slept, and dreamt that life was Beauty; I woke, and found
+     that life was Duty."
+
+     "Duty! wondrous thought, that workest neither by fond
+     insinuation, flattery, nor by any threat, but merely by
+     holding up thy naked law in the soul, and so extorting for
+     thyself always reverence, if not always obedience; before
+     whom all appetites are dumb, however secretly they rebel"--
+     KANT.
+
+            "How happy is he born and taught,
+              That serveth not another's will!
+            Whose armour is his honest thought,
+              And simple truth his utmost skill!
+
+            "Whose passions not his masters are,
+              Whose soul is still prepared for death;
+            Unti'd unto the world by care
+              Of public fame, or private breath.
+
+          "This man is freed from servile bands,
+            Of hope to rise, or fear to fall:
+          Lord of himself, though not of land;
+            And having nothing, yet hath all."--WOTTON.
+
+          "His nay was nay without recall;
+             His yea was yea, and powerful all;
+          He gave his yea with careful heed,
+            His thoughts and words were well agreed;
+          His word, his bond and seal."
+                     INSCRIPTION ON BARON STEIN'S TOMB.
+
+
+DUTY is a thing that is due, and must be paid by every man who would
+avoid present discredit and eventual moral insolvency. It is an
+obligation--a debt--which can only be discharged by voluntary effort and
+resolute action in the affairs of life.
+
+Duty embraces man's whole existence. It begins in the home, where there
+is the duty which children owe to their parents on the one hand, and
+the duty which parents owe to their children on the other. There are, in
+like manner, the respective duties of husbands and wives, of masters
+and servants; while outside the home there are the duties which men
+and women owe to each other as friends and neighbours, as employers and
+employed, as governors and governed.
+
+"Render, therefore," says St. Paul, "to all their dues: tribute to whom
+tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom
+honour. Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth
+another hath fulfilled the law,"
+
+Thus duty rounds the whole of life, from our entrance into it until
+our exit from it--duty to superiors, duty to inferiors, and duty to
+equals--duty to man, and duty to God. Wherever there is power to use
+or to direct, there is duty. For we are but as stewards, appointed to
+employ the means entrusted to us for our own and for others' good.
+
+The abiding sense of duty is the very crown of character. It is
+the upholding law of man in his highest attitudes. Without it, the
+individual totters and falls before the first puff of adversity or
+temptation; whereas, inspired by it, the weakest becomes strong and full
+of courage. "Duty," says Mrs. Jameson, "is the cement which binds
+the whole moral edifice together; without which, all power, goodness,
+intellect, truth, happiness, love itself, can have no permanence; but
+all the fabric of existence crumbles away from under us, and leaves
+us at last sitting in the midst of a ruin, astonished at our own
+desolation."
+
+Duty is based upon a sense of justice--justice inspired by love, which
+is the most perfect form of goodness. Duty is not a sentiment, but a
+principle pervading the life: and it exhibits itself in conduct and in
+acts, which are mainly determined by man's conscience and freewill.
+
+The voice of conscience speaks in duty done; and without its regulating
+and controlling influence, the brightest and greatest intellect may
+be merely as a light that leads astray. Conscience sets a man upon his
+feet, while his will holds him upright. Conscience is the moral governor
+of the heart--the governor of right action, of right thought, of right
+faith, of right life--and only through its dominating influence can the
+noble and upright character be fully developed.
+
+The conscience, however, may speak never so loudly, but without
+energetic will it may speak in vain. The will is free to choose between
+the right course and the wrong one, but the choice is nothing unless
+followed by immediate and decisive action. If the sense of duty be
+strong, and the course of action clear, the courageous will, upheld by
+the conscience, enables a man to proceed on his course bravely, and to
+accomplish his purposes in the face of all opposition and difficulty.
+And should failure be the issue, there will remain at least this
+satisfaction, that it has been in the cause of duty.
+
+"Be and continue poor, young man," said Heinzelmann, "while others
+around you grow rich by fraud and disloyalty; be without place or power
+while others beg their way upwards; bear the pain of disappointed hopes,
+while others gain the accomplishment of theirs by flattery; forego the
+gracious pressure of the hand, for which others cringe and crawl. Wrap
+yourself in your own virtue, and seek a friend and your daily bread. If
+you have in your own cause grown gray with unbleached honour, bless God
+and die!"
+
+Men inspired by high principles are often required to sacrifice all that
+they esteem and love rather than fail in their duty. The old English
+idea of this sublime devotion to duty was expressed by the loyalist poet
+to his sweetheart, on taking up arms for his sovereign:--
+
+          "I could love thee, dear, so much,
+          Loved I not honour more." [161]
+
+And Sertorius has said: "The man who has any dignity of character,
+should conquer with honour, and not use any base means even to save his
+life." So St. Paul, inspired by duty and faith, declared himself as not
+only "ready to be bound, but to die at Jerusalem."
+
+When the Marquis of Pescara was entreated by the princes of Italy to
+desert the Spanish cause, to which he was in honour bound, his noble
+wife, Vittoria Colonna, reminded him of his duty. She wrote to him:
+"Remember your honour, which raises you above fortune and above
+kings; by that alone, and not by the splendour of titles, is glory
+acquired--that glory which it will be your happiness and pride to
+transmit unspotted to your posterity." Such was the dignified view which
+she took of her husband's honour; and when he fell at Pavia, though
+young and beautiful, and besought by many admirers, she betook herself
+to solitude, that she might lament over her husband's loss and celebrate
+his exploits. [162]
+
+To live really, is to act energetically. Life is a battle to be fought
+valiantly. Inspired by high and honourable resolve, a man must stand
+to his post, and die there, if need be. Like the old Danish hero, his
+determination should be, "to dare nobly, to will strongly, and never to
+falter in the path of duty." The power of will, be it great or small,
+which God has given us, is a Divine gift; and we ought neither to let it
+perish for want of using on the one hand, nor profane it by employing
+it for ignoble purposes on the other. Robertson, of Brighton, has
+truly said, that man's real greatness consists not in seeking his own
+pleasure, or fame, or advancement--"not that every one shall save his
+own life, not that every man shall seek his own glory--but that every
+man shall do his own duty."
+
+What most stands in the way of the performance of duty, is irresolution,
+weakness of purpose, and indecision. On the one side are conscience and
+the knowledge of good and evil; on the other are indolence, selfishness,
+love of pleasure, or passion. The weak and ill-disciplined will may
+remain suspended for a time between these influences; but at length the
+balance inclines one way or the other, according as the will is called
+into action or otherwise. If it be allowed to remain passive, the lower
+influence of selfishness or passion will prevail; and thus manhood
+suffers abdication, individuality is renounced, character is degraded,
+and the man permits himself to become the mere passive slave of his
+senses.
+
+Thus, the power of exercising the will promptly, in obedience to the
+dictates of conscience, and thereby resisting the impulses of the lower
+nature, is of essential importance in moral discipline, and absolutely
+necessary for the development of character in its best forms. To acquire
+the habit of well-doing, to resist evil propensities, to fight against
+sensual desires, to overcome inborn selfishness, may require a long and
+persevering discipline; but when once the practice of duty is learnt, it
+becomes consolidated in habit, and thence-forward is comparatively easy.
+
+The valiant good man is he who, by the resolute exercise of his
+freewill, has so disciplined himself as to have acquired the habit of
+virtue; as the bad man is he who, by allowing his freewill to remain
+inactive, and giving the bridle to his desires and passions, has
+acquired the habit of vice, by which he becomes, at last, bound as by
+chains of iron.
+
+A man can only achieve strength of purpose by the action of his own
+freewill. If he is to stand erect, it must be by his own efforts; for he
+cannot be kept propped up by the help of others. He is master of himself
+and of his actions. He can avoid falsehood, and be truthful; he can
+shun sensualism, and be continent; he can turn aside from doing a cruel
+thing, and be benevolent and forgiving. All these lie within the sphere
+of individual efforts, and come within the range of self-discipline. And
+it depends upon men themselves whether in these respects they will be
+free, pure, and good on the one hand; or enslaved, impure, and miserable
+on the other.
+
+Among the wise sayings of Epictetus we find the following: "We do not
+choose our own parts in life, and have nothing to do with those parts:
+our simple duty is confined to playing them well. The slave may be as
+free as the consul; and freedom is the chief of blessings; it dwarfs all
+others; beside it all others are insignificant; with it all others are
+needless; without it no others are possible.... You must teach men that
+happiness is not where, in their blindness and misery, they seek it. It
+is not in strength, for Myro and Ofellius were not happy; not in wealth,
+for Croesus was not happy; not in power, for the Consuls were not happy;
+not in all these together, for Nero and Sardanapulus and Agamemnon
+sighed and wept and tore their hair, and were the slaves of
+circumstances and the dupes of semblances. It lies in yourselves; in
+true freedom, in the absence or conquest of every ignoble fear; in
+perfect self-government; and in a power of contentment and peace, and
+the even flow of life amid poverty, exile, disease, and the very valley
+of the shadow of death." [163]
+
+The sense of duty is a sustaining power even to a courageous man.
+It holds him upright, and makes him strong. It was a noble saying of
+Pompey, when his friends tried to dissuade him from embarking for Rome
+in a storm, telling him that he did so at the great peril of his life:
+"It is necessary for me to go," he said; "it is not necessary for me to
+live." What it was right that he should do, he would do, in the face of
+danger and in defiance of storms.
+
+As might be expected of the great Washington, the chief motive power in
+his life was the spirit of duty. It was the regal and commanding element
+in his character which gave it unity, compactness, and vigour. When
+he clearly saw his duty before him, he did it at all hazards, and with
+inflexible integrity. He did not do it for effect; nor did he think of
+glory, or of fame and its rewards; but of the right thing to be done,
+and the best way of doing it.
+
+Yet Washington had a most modest opinion of himself; and when offered
+the chief command of the American patriot army, he hesitated to accept
+it until it was pressed upon him. When acknowledging in Congress the
+honour which had been done him in selecting him to so important a trust,
+on the execution of which the future of his country in a great measure
+depended, Washington said: "I beg it may be remembered, lest some
+unlucky event should happen unfavourable to my reputation, that I this
+day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to
+the command I am honoured with."
+
+And in his letter to his wife, communicating to her his appointment as
+Commander-in-Chief, he said: "I have used every endeavour in my power
+to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the
+family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my
+capacity; and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with
+you at home, than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if
+my stay were to be seven times seven years. But, as it has been a kind
+of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my
+undertaking it is designed for some good purpose. It was utterly out
+of my power to refuse the appointment, without exposing my character to
+such censures as would have reflected dishonour upon myself, and given
+pain to my friends. This, I am sure, could not, and ought not, to
+be pleasing to you, and must have lessened me considerably in my own
+esteem." [164]
+
+Washington pursued his upright course through life, first as
+Commander-in-Chief, and afterwards as President, never faltering in the
+path of duty. He had no regard for popularity, but held to his purpose,
+through good and through evil report, often at the risk of his power
+and influence. Thus, on one occasion, when the ratification of a treaty,
+arranged by Mr. Jay with Great Britain, was in question, Washington was
+urged to reject it. But his honour, and the honour of his country, was
+committed, and he refused to do so. A great outcry was raised against
+the treaty, and for a time Washington was so unpopular that he is said
+to have been actually stoned by the mob. But he, nevertheless, held it
+to be his duty to ratify the treaty; and it was carried out, in despite
+of petitions and remonstrances from all quarters. "While I feel," he
+said, in answer to the remonstrants, "the most lively gratitude for
+the many instances of approbation from my country, I can no otherwise
+deserve it than by obeying the dictates of my conscience." Wellington's
+watchword, like Washington's, was duty; and no man could be more loyal
+to it than he was. [165] "There is little or nothing," he once said, "in
+this life worth living for; but we can all of us go straight forward and
+do our duty." None recognised more cheerfully than he did the duty of
+obedience and willing service; for unless men can serve faithfully, they
+will not rule others wisely. There is no motto that becomes the wise man
+better than ICH DIEN, "I serve;" and "They also serve who only stand and
+wait."
+
+When the mortification of an officer, because of his being appointed
+to a command inferior to what he considered to be his merits, was
+communicated to the Duke, he said: "In the course of my military career,
+I have gone from the command of a brigade to that of my regiment, and
+from the command of an army to that of a brigade or a division, as I was
+ordered, and without any feeling of mortification."
+
+Whilst commanding the allied army in Portugal, the conduct of the native
+population did not seem to Wellington to be either becoming or dutiful.
+"We have enthusiasm in plenty," he said, "and plenty of cries of 'VIVA!'
+We have illuminations, patriotic songs, and FETES everywhere. But what
+we want is, that each in his own station should do his duty faithfully,
+and pay implicit obedience to legal authority."
+
+This abiding ideal of duty seemed to be the governing principle of
+Wellington's character. It was always uppermost in his mind, and
+directed all the public actions of his life. Nor did it fail to
+communicate itself to those under him, who served him in the like
+spirit. When he rode into one of his infantry squares at Waterloo, as
+its diminished numbers closed up to receive a charge of French cavalry,
+he said to the men, "Stand steady, lads; think of what they will say of
+us in England;" to which the men replied, "Never fear, sir--we know our
+duty."
+
+Duty was also the dominant idea in Nelson's mind. The spirit in which
+he served his country was expressed in the famous watchword, "England
+expects every man to do his duty," signalled by him to the fleet before
+going into action at Trafalgar, as well as in the last words that passed
+his lips,--"I have done my duty; I praise God for it!"
+
+And Nelson's companion and friend--the brave, sensible, homely-minded
+Collingwood--he who, as his ship bore down into the great sea-fight,
+said to his flag-captain, "Just about this time our wives are going to
+church in England,"--Collingwood too was, like his commander, an ardent
+devotee of duty. "Do your duty to the best of your ability," was the
+maxim which he urged upon many young men starting on the voyage of life.
+To a midshipman he once gave the following manly and sensible advice:-
+"You may depend upon it, that it is more in your own power than in
+anybody else's to promote both your comfort and advancement. A strict
+and unwearied attention to your duty, and a complacent and respectful
+behaviour, not only to your superiors but to everybody, will ensure you
+their regard, and the reward will surely come; but if it should not,
+I am convinced you have too much good sense to let disappointment sour
+you. Guard carefully against letting discontent appear in you. It will
+be sorrow to your friends, a triumph to your competitors, and cannot be
+productive of any good. Conduct yourself so as to deserve the best that
+can come to you, and the consciousness of your own proper behaviour will
+keep you in spirits if it should not come. Let it be your ambition to
+be foremost in all duty. Do not be a nice observer of turns, but ever
+present yourself ready for everything, and, unless your officers are
+very inattentive men, they will not allow others to impose more duty on
+you than they should."
+
+This devotion to duty is said to be peculiar to the English nation; and
+it has certainly more or less characterised our greatest public men.
+Probably no commander of any other nation ever went into action with
+such a signal flying as Nelson at Trafalgar--not "Glory," or "Victory,"
+or "Honour," or "Country"--but simply "Duty!" How few are the nations
+willing to rally to such a battle-cry!
+
+Shortly after the wreck of the BIRKENHEAD off the coast of Africa, in
+which the officers and men went down firing a FEU-DE-JOIE after seeing
+the women and children safely embarked in the boats,--Robertson of
+Brighton, referring to the circumstance in one of his letters, said:
+"Yes! Goodness, Duty, Sacrifice,--these are the qualities that England
+honours. She gapes and wonders every now and then, like an awkward
+peasant, at some other things--railway kings, electro-biology, and other
+trumperies; but nothing stirs her grand old heart down to its central
+deeps universally and long, except the Right. She puts on her shawl very
+badly, and she is awkward enough in a concert-room, scarce knowing a
+Swedish nightingale from a jackdaw; but--blessings large and long upon
+her!--she knows how to teach her sons to sink like men amidst sharks
+and billows, without parade, without display, as if Duty were the most
+natural thing in the world; and she never mistakes long an actor for a
+hero, or a hero for an actor." [166]
+
+It is a grand thing, after all, this pervading spirit of Duty in a
+nation; and so long as it survives, no one need despair of its future.
+But when it has departed, or become deadened, and been supplanted by
+thirst for pleasure, or selfish aggrandisement, or "glory"--then woe to
+that nation, for its dissolution is near at hand!
+
+If there be one point on which intelligent observers are agreed more
+than another as to the cause of the late deplorable collapse of France
+as a nation, it was the utter absence of this feeling of duty, as well
+as of truthfulness, from the mind, not only of the men, but of the
+leaders of the French people. The unprejudiced testimony of Baron
+Stoffel, French military attache at Berlin, before the war, is
+conclusive on this point. In his private report to the Emperor, found
+at the Tuileries, which was written in August, 1869, about a year
+before the outbreak of the war, Baron Stoffel pointed out that the
+highly-educated and disciplined German people were pervaded by an ardent
+sense of duty, and did not think it beneath them to reverence sincerely
+what was noble and lofty; whereas, in all respects, France presented a
+melancholy contrast. There the people, having sneered at everything,
+had lost the faculty of respecting anything, and virtue, family life,
+patriotism, honour, and religion, were represented to a frivolous
+generation as only fitting subjects for ridicule. [167] Alas! how terribly
+has France been punished for her sins against truth and duty!
+
+Yet the time was, when France possessed many great men inspired by
+duty; but they were all men of a comparatively remote past. The race
+of Bayard, Duguesclin, Coligny, Duquesne, Turenne, Colbert, and Sully,
+seems to have died out and left no lineage. There has been an occasional
+great Frenchman of modern times who has raised the cry of Duty; but his
+voice has been as that of one crying in the wilderness. De Tocqueville
+was one of such; but, like all men of his stamp, he was proscribed,
+imprisoned, and driven from public life. Writing on one occasion to his
+friend Kergorlay, he said: "Like you, I become more and more alive to
+the happiness which consists in the fulfilment of Duty. I believe there
+is no other so deep and so real. There is only one great object in the
+world which deserves our efforts, and that is the good of mankind." [168]
+
+Although France has been the unquiet spirit among the nations of Europe
+since the reign of Louis XIV., there have from time to time been honest
+and faithful men who have lifted up their voices against the turbulent
+warlike tendencies of the people, and not only preached, but endeavoured
+to carry into practice, a gospel of peace. Of these, the Abbe de
+St.-Pierre was one of the most courageous. He had even the boldness to
+denounce the wars of Louis XIV., and to deny that monarch's right to
+the epithet of 'Great,' for which he was punished by expulsion from
+the Academy. The Abbe was as enthusiastic an agitator for a system of
+international peace as any member of the modern Society of Friends. As
+Joseph Sturge went to St. Petersburg to convert the Emperor of Russia to
+his views, so the Abbe went to Utrecht to convert the Conference sitting
+there, to his project for a Diet; to secure perpetual peace. Of course
+he was regarded as an enthusiast, Cardinal Dubois characterising his
+scheme as "the dream of an honest man." Yet the Abbe had found his dream
+in the Gospel; and in what better way could he exemplify the spirit
+of the Master he served than by endeavouring to abate the horrors
+and abominations of war? The Conference was an assemblage of men
+representing Christian States: and the Abbe merely called upon them to
+put in practice the doctrines they professed to believe. It was of no
+use: the potentates and their representatives turned to him a deaf ear.
+
+The Abbe de St.-Pierre lived several hundred years too soon. But he
+determined that his idea should not be lost, and in 1713 he published
+his 'Project of Perpetual Peace.' He there proposed the formation of
+a European Diet, or Senate, to be composed of representatives of all
+nations, before which princes should be bound, before resorting to arms,
+to state their grievances and require redress. Writing about eighty
+years after the publication of this project, Volney asked: "What is
+a people?--an individual of the society at large. What a war?--a duel
+between two individual people. In what manner ought a society to act
+when two of its members fight?--Interfere, and reconcile or repress
+them. In the days of the Abbe de St.-Pierre, this was treated as a
+dream; but, happily for the human race, it begins to be realised." Alas
+for the prediction of Volney! The twenty-five years that followed the
+date at which this passage was written, were distinguished by more
+devastating and furious wars on the part of France than had ever been
+known in the world before.
+
+The Abbe was not, however, a mere dreamer. He was an active practical
+philanthropist and anticipated many social improvements which have since
+become generally adopted. He was the original founder of industrial
+schools for poor children, where they not only received a good
+education, but learned some useful trade, by which they might earn an
+honest living when they grew up to manhood. He advocated the revision
+and simplification of the whole code of laws--an idea afterwards carried
+out by the First Napoleon. He wrote against duelling, against luxury,
+against gambling, against monasticism, quoting the remark of Segrais,
+that "the mania for a monastic life is the smallpox of the mind." He
+spent his whole income in acts of charity--not in almsgiving, but in
+helping poor children, and poor men and women, to help themselves. His
+object always was to benefit permanently those whom he assisted. He
+continued his love of truth and his freedom of speech to the last. At
+the age of eighty he said: "If life is a lottery for happiness, my lot
+has been one of the best." When on his deathbed, Voltaire asked him
+how he felt, to which he answered, "As about to make a journey into the
+country." And in this peaceful frame of mind he died. But so outspoken
+had St.-Pierre been against corruption in high places, that Maupertius,
+his Successor at the Academy, was not permitted to pronounce his ELOGE;
+nor was it until thirty-two years after his death that this honour was
+done to his memory by D'Alembert. The true and emphatic epitaph of the
+good, truth-loving, truth-speaking Abbe was this--"HE LOVED MUCH!"
+
+Duty is closely allied to truthfulness of character; and the dutiful man
+is, above all things, truthful in his words as in his actions. He says
+and he does the right thing, in the right way, and at the right time.
+
+There is probably no saying of Lord Chesterfield that commends itself
+more strongly to the approval of manly-minded men, than that it is truth
+that makes the success of the gentleman. Clarendon, speaking of one of
+the noblest and purest gentlemen of his age, says of Falkland, that he
+"was so severe an adorer of truth that he could as easily have given
+himself leave to steal as to dissemble."
+
+It was one of the finest things that Mrs. Hutchinson could say of her
+husband, that he was a thoroughly truthful and reliable man: "He never
+professed the thing he intended not, nor promised what he believed out
+of his power, nor failed in the performance of anything that was in his
+power to fulfil."
+
+Wellington was a severe admirer of truth. An illustration may be given.
+When afflicted by deafness he consulted a celebrated aurist, who, after
+trying all remedies in vain, determined, as a last resource, to inject
+into the ear a strong solution of caustic. It caused the most intense
+pain, but the patient bore it with his usual equanimity. The family
+physician accidentally calling one day, found the Duke with flushed
+cheeks and bloodshot eyes, and when he rose he staggered about like a
+drunken man. The doctor asked to be permitted to look at his ear, and
+then he found that a furious inflammation was going on, which, if not
+immediately checked, must shortly reach the brain and kill him. Vigorous
+remedies were at once applied, and the inflammation was checked. But the
+hearing of that ear was completely destroyed. When the aurist heard of
+the danger his patient had run, through the violence of the remedy
+he had employed, he hastened to Apsley House to express his grief and
+mortification; but the Duke merely said: "Do not say a word more about
+it--you did all for the best." The aurist said it would be his ruin
+when it became known that he had been the cause of so much suffering and
+danger to his Grace. "But nobody need know anything about it: keep your
+own counsel, and, depend upon it, I won't say a word to any one." "Then
+your Grace will allow me to attend you as usual, which will show the
+public that you have not withdrawn your confidence from me?" "No,"
+replied the Duke, kindly but firmly; "I can't do that, for that would be
+a lie." He would not act a falsehood any more than he would speak one.
+[169]
+
+Another illustration of duty and truthfulness, as exhibited in the
+fulfilment of a promise, may be added from the life of Blucher. When he
+was hastening with his army over bad roads to the help of Wellington, on
+the 18th of June, 1815, he encouraged his troops by words and gestures.
+"Forwards, children--forwards!" "It is impossible; it can't be done,"
+was the answer. Again and again he urged them. "Children, we must get
+on; you may say it can't be done, but it MUST be done! I have promised
+my brother Wellington--PROMISED, do you hear? You wouldn't have me BREAK
+MY WORD!" And it was done.
+
+Truth is the very bond of society, without which it must cease to exist,
+and dissolve into anarchy and chaos. A household cannot be governed by
+lying; nor can a nation. Sir Thomas Browne once asked, "Do the devils
+lie?" "No," was his answer; "for then even hell could not subsist." No
+considerations can justify the sacrifice of truth, which ought to be
+sovereign in all the relations of life.
+
+Of all mean vices, perhaps lying is the meanest. It is in some cases
+the offspring of perversity and vice, and in many others of sheer moral
+cowardice. Yet many persons think so lightly of it that they will order
+their servants to lie for them; nor can they feel surprised if, after
+such ignoble instruction, they find their servants lying for themselves.
+
+Sir Harry Wotton's description of an ambassador as "an honest man sent
+to lie abroad for the benefit of his country," though meant as a satire,
+brought him into disfavour with James I. when it became published; for
+an adversary quoted it as a principle of the king's religion. That it
+was not Wotton's real view of the duty of an honest man, is obvious from
+the lines quoted at the head of this chapter, on 'The Character of a
+Happy Life,' in which he eulogises the man
+
+          "Whose armour is his honest thought,
+           And simple truth his utmost skill."
+
+But lying assumes many forms--such as diplomacy, expediency, and moral
+reservation; and, under one guise or another, it is found more or less
+pervading all classes of society. Sometimes it assumes the form of
+equivocation or moral dodging--twisting and so stating the things said
+as to convey a false impression--a kind of lying which a Frenchman once
+described as "walking round about the truth."
+
+There are even men of narrow minds and dishonest natures, who pride
+themselves upon their jesuitical cleverness in equivocation, in their
+serpent-wise shirking of the truth and getting out of moral back-doors,
+in order to hide their real opinions and evade the consequences of
+holding and openly professing them. Institutions or systems based upon
+any such expedients must necessarily prove false and hollow. "Though
+a lie be ever so well dressed," says George Herbert, "it is ever
+overcome." Downright lying, though bolder and more vicious, is even less
+contemptible than such kind of shuffling and equivocation.
+
+Untruthfulness exhibits itself in many other forms: in reticency on the
+one hand, or exaggeration on the other; in disguise or concealment; in
+pretended concurrence in others opinions; in assuming an attitude of
+conformity which is deceptive; in making promises, or allowing them
+to be implied, which are never intended to be performed; or even in
+refraining from speaking the truth when to do so is a duty. There are
+also those who are all things to all men, who say one thing and do
+another, like Bunyan's Mr. Facing-both-ways; only deceiving themselves
+when they think they are deceiving others--and who, being essentially
+insincere, fail to evoke confidence, and invariably in the end turn out
+failures, if not impostors.
+
+Others are untruthful in their pretentiousness, and in assuming merits
+which they do not really possess. The truthful man is, on the contrary,
+modest, and makes no parade of himself and his deeds. When Pitt was
+in his last illness, the news reached England of the great deeds of
+Wellington in India. "The more I hear of his exploits," said Pitt, "the
+more I admire the modesty with which he receives the praises he merits
+for them. He is the only man I ever knew that was not vain of what he
+had done, and yet had so much reason to be so."
+
+So it is said of Faraday by Professor Tyndall, that "pretence of all
+kinds, whether in life or in philosophy, was hateful to him." Dr.
+Marshall Hall was a man of like spirit--courageously truthful, dutiful,
+and manly. One of his most intimate friends has said of him that,
+wherever he met with untruthfulness or sinister motive, he would expose
+it, saying--"I neither will, nor can, give my consent to a lie." The
+question, "right or wrong," once decided in his own mind, the right
+was followed, no matter what the sacrifice or the difficulty--neither
+expediency nor inclination weighing one jot in the balance.
+
+There was no virtue that Dr. Arnold laboured more sedulously to instil
+into young men than the virtue of truthfulness, as being the manliest of
+virtues, as indeed the very basis of all true manliness. He designated
+truthfulness as "moral transparency," and he valued it more highly than
+any other quality. When lying was detected, he treated it as a great
+moral offence; but when a pupil made an assertion, he accepted it with
+confidence. "If you say so, that is quite enough; OF COURSE I believe
+your word." By thus trusting and believing them, he educated the young
+in truthfulness; the boys at length coming to say to one another: "It's
+a shame to tell Arnold a lie--he always believes one." [1610]
+
+One of the most striking instances that could be given of the character
+of the dutiful, truthful, laborious man, is presented in the life of
+the late George Wilson, Professor of Technology in the University of
+Edinburgh. [1611] Though we bring this illustration under the head of
+Duty, it might equally have stood under that of Courage, Cheerfulness,
+or Industry, for it is alike illustrative of these several qualities.
+
+Wilson's life was, indeed, a marvel of cheerful laboriousness;
+exhibiting the power of the soul to triumph over the body, and almost to
+set it at defiance. It might be taken as an illustration of the saying
+of the whaling-captain to Dr. Kane, as to the power of moral force over
+physical: "Bless you, sir, the soul will any day lift the body out of
+its boots!"
+
+A fragile but bright and lively boy, he had scarcely entered manhood ere
+his constitution began to exhibit signs of disease. As early, indeed,
+as his seventeenth year, he began to complain of melancholy and
+sleeplessness, supposed to be the effects of bile. "I don't think I
+shall live long," he then said to a friend; "my mind will--must work
+itself out, and the body will soon follow it." A strange confession for
+a boy to make! But he gave his physical health no fair chance. His life
+was all brain-work, study, and competition. When he took exercise it was
+in sudden bursts, which did him more harm than good. Long walks in the
+Highlands jaded and exhausted him; and he returned to his brain-work
+unrested and unrefreshed.
+
+It was during one of his forced walks of some twenty-four miles in
+the neighbourhood of Stirling, that he injured one of his feet, and he
+returned home seriously ill. The result was an abscess, disease of the
+ankle-joint, and long agony, which ended in the amputation of the
+right foot. But he never relaxed in his labours. He was now writing,
+lecturing, and teaching chemistry. Rheumatism and acute inflammation of
+the eye next attacked him; and were treated by cupping, blisetring, and
+colchicum. Unable himself to write, he went on preparing his lectures,
+which he dictated to his sister. Pain haunted him day and night,
+and sleep was only forced by morphia. While in this state of general
+prostration, symptoms of pulmonary disease began to show themselves. Yet
+he continued to give the weekly lectures to which he stood committed
+to the Edinburgh School of Arts. Not one was shirked, though their
+delivery, before a large audience, was a most exhausting duty. "Well,
+there's another nail put into my coffin," was the remark made on
+throwing off his top-coat on returning home; and a sleepless night
+almost invariably followed.
+
+At twenty-seven, Wilson was lecturing ten, eleven, or more hours
+weekly, usually with setons or open blister-wounds upon him--his "bosom
+friends," he used to call them. He felt the shadow of death upon him;
+and he worked as if his days were numbered. "Don't be surprised," he
+wrote to a friend, "if any morning at breakfast you hear that I am
+gone." But while he said so, he did not in the least degree indulge in
+the feeling of sickly sentimentality. He worked on as cheerfully and
+hopefully as if in the very fulness of his strength. "To none," said he,
+"is life so sweet as to those who have lost all fear to die."
+
+Sometimes he was compelled to desist from his labours by sheer debility,
+occasioned by loss of blood from the lungs; but after a few weeks' rest
+and change of air, he would return to his work, saying, "The water is
+rising in the well again!" Though disease had fastened on his lungs, and
+was spreading there, and though suffering from a distressing cough,
+he went on lecturing as usual. To add to his troubles, when one day
+endeavouring to recover himself from a stumble occasioned by his
+lameness, he overstrained his arm, and broke the bone near the shoulder.
+But he recovered from his successive accidents and illnesses in the most
+extraordinary way. The reed bent, but did not break: the storm passed,
+and it stood erect as before.
+
+There was no worry, nor fever, nor fret about him; but instead,
+cheerfulness, patience, and unfailing perseverance. His mind, amidst all
+his sufferings, remained perfectly calm and serene. He went about his
+daily work with an apparently charmed life, as if he had the strength
+of many men in him. Yet all the while he knew he was dying, his chief
+anxiety being to conceal his state from those about him at home, to
+whom the knowledge of his actual condition would have been inexpressibly
+distressing. "I am cheerful among strangers," he said, "and try to live
+day by day as a dying man." [1612]
+
+He went on teaching as before--lecturing to the Architectural Institute
+and to the School of Arts. One day, after a lecture before the latter
+institute, he lay down to rest, and was shortly awakened by the rupture
+of a bloodvessel, which occasioned him the loss of a considerable
+quantity of blood. He did not experience the despair and agony that
+Keats did on a like occasion; [1613] though he equally knew that the
+messenger of death had come, and was waiting for him. He appeared at
+the family meals as usual, and next day he lectured twice, punctually
+fulfilling his engagements; but the exertion of speaking was followed by
+a second attack of haemorrhage. He now became seriously ill, and it
+was doubted whether he would survive the night. But he did survive;
+and during his convalescence he was appointed to an important public
+office--that of Director of the Scottish Industrial Museum, which
+involved a great amount of labour, as well as lecturing, in his capacity
+of Professor of Technology, which he held in connection with the office.
+
+From this time forward, his "dear museum," as he called it, absorbed
+all his surplus energies. While busily occupied in collecting models
+and specimens for the museum, he filled up his odds-and-ends of time
+in lecturing to Ragged Schools, Ragged Kirks, and Medical Missionary
+Societies. He gave himself no rest, either of mind or body; and "to die
+working" was the fate he envied. His mind would not give in, but
+his poor body was forced to yield, and a severe attack of
+haemorrhage--bleeding from both lungs and stomach [1614]--compelled him
+to relax in his labours. "For a month, or some forty days," he wrote--"a
+dreadful Lent--the mind has blown geographically from 'Araby the blest,'
+but thermometrically from Iceland the accursed. I have been made a
+prisoner of war, hit by an icicle in the lungs, and have shivered and
+burned alternately for a large portion of the last month, and spat blood
+till I grew pale with coughing. Now I am better, and to-morrow I give
+my concluding lecture [16on Technology], thankful that I have contrived,
+notwithstanding all my troubles, to carry on without missing a lecture
+to the last day of the Faculty of Arts, to which I belong." [1615]
+
+How long was it to last? He himself began to wonder, for he had long
+felt his life as if ebbing away. At length he became languid, weary, and
+unfit for work; even the writing of a letter cost him a painful effort,
+and. he felt "as if to lie down and sleep were the only things worth
+doing." Yet shortly after, to help a Sunday-school, he wrote his 'Five
+Gateways of Knowledge,' as a lecture, and afterwards expanded it into
+a book. He also recovered strength sufficient to enable him to proceed
+with his lectures to the institutions to which he belonged, besides on
+various occasions undertaking to do other people's work. "I am looked
+upon as good as mad," he wrote to his brother, "because, on a hasty
+notice, I took a defaulting lecturer's place at the Philosophical
+Institution, and discoursed on the Polarization of Light.... But I like
+work: it is a family weakness."
+
+Then followed chronic malaise--sleepless nights, days of pain, and
+more spitting of blood. "My only painless moments," he says, "were when
+lecturing." In this state of prostration and disease, the indefatigable
+man undertook to write the 'Life of Edward Forbes'; and he did it, like
+everything he undertook, with admirable ability. He proceeded with
+his lectures as usual. To an association of teachers he delivered a
+discourse on the educational value of industrial science. After he
+had spoken to his audience for an hour, he left them to say whether
+he should go on or not, and they cheered him on to another half-hour's
+address. "It is curious," he wrote, "the feeling of having an audience,
+like clay in your hands, to mould for a season as you please. It is a
+terribly responsible power.... I do not mean for a moment to imply that
+I am indifferent to the good opinion of others--far otherwise; but to
+gain this is much less a concern with me than to deserve it. It was
+not so once. I had no wish for unmerited praise, but I was too ready to
+settle that I did merit it. Now, the word DUTY seems to me the biggest
+word in the world, and is uppermost in all my serious doings."
+
+This was written only about four months before his death. A little later
+he wrote, "I spin my thread of life from week to week, rather than from
+year to year." Constant attacks of bleeding from the lungs sapped his
+little remaining strength, but did not altogether disable him from
+lecturing. He was amused by one of his friends proposing to put him
+under trustees for the purpose of looking after his health. But he
+would not be restrained from working, so long as a vestige of strength
+remained.
+
+One day, in the autumn of 1859, he returned from his customary lecture
+in the University of Edinburgh with a severe pain in his side. He was
+scarcely able to crawl upstairs. Medical aid was sent for, and he was
+pronounced to be suffering from pleurisy and inflammation of the lungs.
+His enfeebled frame was ill able to resist so severe a disease, and he
+sank peacefully to the rest he so longed for, after a few days' illness:
+
+          "Wrong not the dead with tears!
+          A glorious bright to-morrow
+      Endeth a weary life of pain and sorrow."
+
+The life of George Wilson--so admirably and affectionately related by
+his sister--is probably one of the most marvellous records of pain and
+longsuffering, and yet of persistent, noble, and useful work, that is
+to be found in the whole history of literature. His entire career
+was indeed but a prolonged illustration of the lines which he himself
+addressed to his deceased friend, Dr. John Reid, a likeminded man, whose
+memoir he wrote:--
+
+         "Thou wert a daily lesson
+            Of courage, hope, and faith;
+          We wondered at thee living,
+            We envy thee thy death.
+
+          Thou wert so meek and reverent,
+            So resolute of will,
+          So bold to bear the uttermost,
+            And yet so calm and still."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--TEMPER.
+
+
+      "Temper is nine-tenths of Christianity."--BISHOP WILSON.
+
+        "Heaven is a temper, not a place."--DR. CHALMERS.
+
+        "And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,
+                   Some harshness show;
+        All vain asperities I day by day
+                   Would wear away,
+        Till the smooth temper of my age should be
+        Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree"--SOUTHEY.
+
+    "Even Power itself hath not one-half the might of Gentleness"
+                                                  --LEIGH HUNT.
+
+
+It has been said that men succeed in life quite as much by their temper
+as by their talents. However this may be, it is certain that their
+happiness in life depends mainly upon their equanimity of disposition,
+their patience and forbearance, and their kindness and thoughtfulness
+for those about them. It is really true what Plato says, that in seeking
+the good of others we find our own.
+
+There are some natures so happily constituted that they can find good in
+everything. There is no calamity so great but they can educe comfort or
+consolation from it--no sky so black but they can discover a gleam of
+sunshine issuing through it from some quarter or another; and if the sun
+be not visible to their eyes, they at least comfort themselves with the
+thought that it IS there, though veiled from them for some good and wise
+purpose.
+
+Such happy natures are to be envied. They have a beam in the eye--a beam
+of pleasure, gladness, religious cheerfulness, philosophy, call it what
+you will. Sunshine is about their hearts, and their mind gilds with its
+own hues all that it looks upon. When they have burdens to bear, they
+bear them cheerfully--not repining, nor fretting, nor wasting their
+energies in useless lamentation, but struggling onward manfully,
+gathering up such flowers as lie along their path.
+
+Let it not for a moment be supposed that men such as those we speak of
+are weak and unreflective. The largest and most comprehensive natures
+are generally also the most cheerful, the most loving, the most hopeful,
+the most trustful. It is the wise man, of large vision, who is the
+quickest to discern the moral sunshine gleaming through the darkest
+cloud. In present evil he sees prospective good; in pain, he recognises
+the effort of nature to restore health; in trials, he finds correction
+and discipline; and in sorrow and suffering, he gathers courage,
+knowledge, and the best practical wisdom.
+
+When Jeremy Taylor had lost all--when his house had been plundered,
+and his family driven out-of-doors, and all his worldly estate had been
+sequestrated--he could still write thus: "I am fallen into the hands of
+publicans and sequestrators, and they have taken all from me; what now?
+Let me look about me. They have left me the sun and moon, a loving wife,
+and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me; and I can still
+discourse, and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry
+countenance and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience; they have
+still left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the Gospel,
+and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them, too;
+and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate....
+And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in
+love with sorrow and peevishness, who loves all these pleasures, and
+chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns." [171]
+
+Although cheerfulness of disposition is very much a matter of inborn
+temperament, it is also capable of being trained and cultivated like any
+other habit. We may make the best of life, or we may make the worst of
+it; and it depends very much upon ourselves whether we extract joy or
+misery from it. There are always two sides of life on which we can look,
+according as we choose--the bright side or the gloomy. We can bring the
+power of the will to bear in making the choice, and thus cultivate the
+habit of being happy or the reverse. We can encourage the disposition
+of looking at the brightest side of things, instead of the darkest. And
+while we see the cloud, let us not shut our eyes to the silver lining.
+
+The beam in the eye sheds brightness, beauty, and joy upon life in all
+its phases. It shines upon coldness, and warms it; upon suffering, and
+comforts it; upon ignorance, and enlightens it; upon sorrow, and cheers
+it. The beam in the eye gives lustre to intellect, and brightens beauty
+itself. Without it the sunshine of life is not felt, flowers bloom in
+vain, the marvels of heaven and earth are not seen or acknowledged, and
+creation is but a dreary, lifeless, soulless blank.
+
+While cheerfulness of disposition is a great source of enjoyment in
+life, it is also a great safeguard of character. A devotional writer
+of the present day, in answer to the question, How are we to overcome
+temptations? says: "Cheerfulness is the first thing, cheerfulness is the
+second, and cheerfulness is the third." It furnishes the best soil for
+the growth of goodness and virtue. It gives brightness of heart and
+elasticity of spirit. It is the companion of charity, the nurse of
+patience the mother of wisdom. It is also the best of moral and mental
+tonics. "The best cordial of all," said Dr. Marshall Hall to one of his
+patients, "is cheerfulness." And Solomon has said that "a merry heart
+doeth good like a medicine." When Luther was once applied to for a
+remedy against melancholy, his advice was: "Gaiety and courage--innocent
+gaiety, and rational honourable courage--are the best medicine for young
+men, and for old men, too; for all men against sad thoughts." [172] Next
+to music, if not before it, Luther loved children and flowers. The great
+gnarled man had a heart as tender as a woman's.
+
+Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called
+the bright weather of the heart. It gives harmony of soul, and is a
+perpetual song without words. It is tantamount to repose. It enables
+nature to recruit its strength; whereas worry and discontent debilitate
+it, involving constant wear-and-tear. How is it that we see such men
+as Lord Palmerston growing old in harness, working on vigorously to the
+end? Mainly through equanimity of temper and habitual cheerfulness. They
+have educated themselves in the habit of endurance, of not being easily
+provoked, of bearing and forbearing, of hearing harsh and even unjust
+things said of them without indulging in undue resentment, and avoiding
+worreting, petty, and self-tormenting cares. An intimate friend of Lord
+Palmerston, who observed him closely for twenty years, has said that he
+never saw him angry, with perhaps one exception; and that was when the
+ministry responsible for the calamity in Affghanistan, of which he was
+one, were unjustly accused by their opponents of falsehood, perjury, and
+wilful mutilation of public documents.
+
+So far as can be learnt from biography, men of the greatest genius
+have been for the most part cheerful, contented men--not eager for
+reputation, money, or power--but relishing life, and keenly susceptible
+of enjoyment, as we find reflected in their works. Such seem to have
+been Homer, Horace, Virgil, Montaigne, Shakspeare, Cervantes. Healthy
+serene cheerfulness is apparent in their great creations. Among the same
+class of cheerful-minded men may also be mentioned Luther, More, Bacon,
+Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michael Angelo. Perhaps they were happy
+because constantly occupied, and in the pleasantest of all work--that of
+creating out of the fulness and richness of their great minds.
+
+Milton, too, though a man of many trials and sufferings, must have been
+a man of great cheerfulness and elasticity of nature. Though overtaken
+by blindness, deserted by friends, and fallen upon evil days--"darkness
+before and danger's voice behind"--yet did he not bate heart or hope,
+but "still bore up and steered right onward."
+
+Henry Fielding was a man borne down through life by debt, and
+difficulty, and bodily suffering; and yet Lady Mary Wortley Montague
+has said of him that, by virtue of his cheerful disposition, she was
+persuaded he "had known more happy moments than any person on earth."
+
+Dr. Johnson, through all his trials and sufferings and hard fights with
+fortune, was a courageous and cheerful-natured man. He manfully made
+the best of life, and tried to be glad in it. Once, when a clergyman was
+complaining of the dulness of society in the country, saying "they only
+talk of runts" [17young cows], Johnson felt flattered by the observation
+of Mrs. Thrale's mother, who said, "Sir, Dr. Johnson would learn to
+talk of runts"--meaning that he was a man who would make the most of his
+situation, whatever it was.
+
+Johnson was of opinion that a man grew better as he grew older, and that
+his nature mellowed with age. This is certainly a much more cheerful
+view of human nature than that of Lord Chesterfield, who saw life
+through the eyes of a cynic, and held that "the heart never grows better
+by age: it only grows harder." But both sayings may be true according
+to the point from which life is viewed, and the temper by which a man is
+governed; for while the good, profiting by experience, and disciplining
+themselves by self-control, will grow better, the ill-conditioned,
+uninfluenced by experience, will only grow worse.
+
+Sir Walter Scott was a man full of the milk of human kindness. Everybody
+loved him. He was never five minutes in a room ere the little pets of
+the family, whether dumb or lisping, had found out his kindness for all
+their generation. Scott related to Captain Basil Hall an incident of his
+boyhood which showed the tenderness of his nature. One day, a dog coming
+towards him, he took up a big stone, threw it, and hit the dog. The poor
+creature had strength enough left to crawl up to him and lick his feet,
+although he saw its leg was broken. The incident, he said, had given
+him the bitterest remorse in his after-life; but he added, "An early
+circumstance of that kind, properly reflected on, is calculated to have
+the best effect on one's character throughout life."
+
+"Give me an honest laugher," Scott would say; and he himself laughed the
+heart's laugh. He had a kind word for everybody, and his kindness acted
+all round him like a contagion, dispelling the reserve and awe which his
+great name was calculated to inspire. "He'll come here," said the keeper
+of the ruins of Melrose Abbey to Washington Irving--"he'll come here
+some-times, wi' great folks in his company, and the first I'll know of
+it is hearing his voice calling out, 'Johnny! Johnny Bower!' And when I
+go out I'm sure to be greeted wi' a joke or a pleasant word. He'll stand
+and crack and laugh wi' me, just like an auld wife; and to think that of
+a man that has SUCH AN AWFU' KNOWLEDGE O' HISTORY!"
+
+Dr. Arnold was a man of the same hearty cordiality of manner--full of
+human sympathy. There was not a particle of affectation or pretence of
+condescension about him. "I never knew such a humble man as the doctor,"
+said the parish clerk at Laleham; "he comes and shakes us by the hand as
+if he was one of us." "He used to come into my house," said an old woman
+near Fox How, "and talk to me as if I were a lady."
+
+Sydney Smith was another illustration of the power of cheerfulness. He
+was ever ready to look on the bright side of things; the darkest cloud
+had to him its silver lining. Whether working as country curate, or as
+parish rector, he was always kind, laborious, patient, and exemplary;
+exhibiting in every sphere of life the spirit of a Christian, the
+kindness of a pastor, and the honour of a gentleman. In his leisure he
+employed his pen on the side of justice, freedom, education, toleration,
+emancipation; and his writings, though full of common-sense and bright
+humour, are never vulgar; nor did he ever pander to popularity or
+prejudice. His good spirits, thanks to his natural vivacity and stamina
+of constitution, never forsook him; and in his old age, when borne down
+by disease, he wrote to a friend: "I have gout, asthma, and seven other
+maladies, but am otherwise very well." In one of the last letters he
+wrote to Lady Carlisle, he said: "If you hear of sixteen or eighteen
+pounds of flesh wanting an owner, they belong to me. I look as if a
+curate had been taken out of me."
+
+Great men of science have for the most part been patient, laborious,
+cheerful-minded men. Such were Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and Laplace.
+Euler the mathematician, one of the greatest of natural philosophers,
+was a distinguished instance. Towards the close of his life he became
+completely blind; but he went on writing as cheerfully as before,
+supplying the want of sight by various ingenious mechanical devices,
+and by the increased cultivation of his memory, which became exceedingly
+tenacious. His chief pleasure was in the society of his grandchildren,
+to whom he taught their little lessons in the intervals of his severer
+studies.
+
+In like manner, Professor Robison of Edinburgh, the first editor of the
+'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' when disabled from work by a lingering
+and painful disorder, found his chief pleasure in the society of his
+grandchild. "I am infinitely delighted," he wrote to James Watt, "with
+observing the growth of its little soul, and particularly with its
+numberless instincts, which formerly passed unheeded. I thank the French
+theorists for more forcibly directing my attention to the finger of God,
+which I discern in every awkward movement and every wayward whim. They
+are all guardians of his life and growth and power. I regret indeed that
+I have not time to make infancy and the development of its powers my
+sole study."
+
+One of the sorest trials of a man's temper and patience was that which
+befell Abauzit, the natural philosopher, while residing at Geneva;
+resembling in many respects a similar calamity which occurred to Newton,
+and which he bore with equal resignation. Amongst other things, Abauzit
+devoted much study to the barometer and its variations, with the object
+of deducing the general laws which regulated atmospheric pressure.
+During twenty-seven years he made numerous observations daily, recording
+them on sheets prepared for the purpose. One day, when a new servant was
+installed in the house, she immediately proceeded to display her zeal
+by "putting things to-rights." Abauzit's study, amongst other rooms, was
+made tidy and set in order. When he entered it, he asked of the servant,
+"What have you done with the paper that was round the barometer?" "Oh,
+sir," was the reply, "it was so dirty that I burnt it, and put in its
+place this paper, which you will see is quite new." Abauzit crossed his
+arms, and after some moments of internal struggle, he said, in a tone
+of calmness and resignation: "You have destroyed the results of
+twenty-seven years labour; in future touch nothing whatever in this
+room."
+
+The study of natural history more than that of any other branch of
+science, seems to be accompanied by unusual cheerfulness and equanimity
+of temper on the part of its votaries; the result of which is, that
+the life of naturalists is on the whole more prolonged than that of
+any other class of men of science. A member of the Linnaean Society has
+informed us that of fourteen members who died in 1870, two were over
+ninety, five were over eighty, and two were over seventy. The average
+age of all the members who died in that year was seventy-five.
+
+Adanson, the French botanist, was about seventy years old when the
+Revolution broke out, and amidst the shock he lost everything--his
+fortune, his places, and his gardens. But his patience, courage,
+and resignation never forsook him. He became reduced to the greatest
+straits, and even wanted food and clothing; yet his ardour of
+investigation remained the same. Once, when the Institute invited him,
+as being one of its oldest members, to assist at a SEANCE, his answer
+was that he regretted he could not attend for want of shoes. "It was a
+touching sight," says Cuvier, "to see the poor old man, bent over the
+embers of a decaying fire, trying to trace characters with a feeble hand
+on the little bit of paper which he held, forgetting all the pains of
+life in some new idea in natural history, which came to him like
+some beneficent fairy to cheer him in his loneliness." The Directory
+eventually gave him a small pension, which Napoleon doubled; and at
+length, easeful death came to his relief in his seventy-ninth year. A
+clause in his will, as to the manner of his funeral, illustrates the
+character of the man. He directed that a garland of flowers, provided by
+fifty-eight families whom he had established in life, should be the
+only decoration of his coffin--a slight but touching image of the more
+durable monument which he had erected for himself in his works.
+
+Such are only a few instances, of the cheerful-working-ness of great
+men, which might, indeed, be multiplied to any extent. All large
+healthy natures are cheerful as well as hopeful. Their example is also
+contagious and diffusive, brightening and cheering all who come within
+reach of their influence. It was said of Sir John Malcolm, when he
+appeared in a saddened camp in India, that "it was like a gleam of
+sunlight,.... no man left him without a smile on his face. He was 'boy
+Malcolm' still. It was impossible to resist the fascination of his
+genial presence." [173]
+
+There was the same joyousness of nature about Edmund Burke. Once at a
+dinner at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, when the conversation turned upon
+the suitability of liquors for particular temperaments, Johnson said,
+"Claret is for boys, port for men, and brandy for heroes." "Then," said
+Burke, "let me have claret: I love to be a boy, and to have the careless
+gaiety of boyish days." And so it is, that there are old young men, and
+young old men--some who are as joyous and cheerful as boys in their
+old age, and others who are as morose and cheerless as saddened old men
+while still in their boyhood.
+
+In the presence of some priggish youths, we have heard a cheerful old
+man declare that, apparently, there would soon be nothing but "old boys"
+left. Cheerfulness, being generous and genial, joyous and hearty, is
+never the characteristic of prigs. Goethe used to exclaim of goody-goody
+persons, "Oh! if they had but the heart to commit an absurdity!" This
+was when he thought they wanted heartiness and nature. "Pretty dolls!"
+was his expression when speaking of them, and turning away.
+
+The true basis of cheerfulness is love, hope, and patience. Love evokes
+love, and begets loving kindness. Love cherishes hopeful and generous
+thoughts of others. It is charitable, gentle, and truthful. It is a
+discerner of good. It turns to the brightest side of things, and its
+face is ever directed towards happiness. It sees "the glory in the
+grass, the sunshine on the flower." It encourages happy thoughts, and
+lives in an atmosphere of cheerfulness. It costs nothing, and yet is
+invaluable; for it blesses its possessor, and grows up in abundant
+happiness in the bosoms of others. Even its sorrows are linked with
+pleasures, and its very tears are sweet.
+
+Bentham lays it down as a principle, that a man becomes rich in his own
+stock of pleasures in proportion to the amount he distributes to others.
+His kindness will evoke kindness, and his happiness be increased by his
+own benevolence. "Kind words," he says, "cost no more than unkind ones.
+Kind words produce kind actions, not only on the part of him to whom
+they are addressed, but on the part of him by whom they are employed;
+and this not incidentally only, but habitually, in virtue of the
+principle of association.".... "It may indeed happen, that the effort
+of beneficence may not benefit those for whom it was intended; but when
+wisely directed, it MUST benefit the person from whom it emanates. Good
+and friendly conduct may meet with an unworthy and ungrateful return;
+but the absence of gratitude on the part of the receiver cannot destroy
+the self-approbation which recompenses the giver, and we may scatter the
+seeds of courtesy and kindliness around us at so little expense. Some of
+them will inevitably fall on good ground, and grow up into benevolence
+in the minds of others; and all of them will bear fruit of happiness
+in the bosom whence they spring. Once blest are all the virtues always;
+twice blest sometimes." [174]
+
+The poet Rogers used to tell a story of a little girl, a great favourite
+with every one who knew her. Some one said to her, "Why does everybody
+love you so much?" She answered, "I think it is because I love everybody
+so much." This little story is capable of a very wide application; for
+our happiness as human beings, generally speaking, will be found to be
+very much in proportion to the number of things we love, and the number
+of things that love us. And the greatest worldly success, however
+honestly achieved, will contribute comparatively little to happiness,
+unless it be accompanied by a lively benevolence towards every human
+being.
+
+Kindness is indeed a great power in the world. Leigh Hunt has truly said
+that "Power itself hath not one half the might of gentleness." Men are
+always best governed through their affections. There is a French proverb
+which says that, "LES HOMMES SE PRENNENT PAR LA DOUCEUR," and a coarser
+English one, to the effect that "More wasps are caught by honey than by
+vinegar." "Every act of kindness," says Bentham, "is in fact an exercise
+of power, and a stock of friendship laid up; and why should not power
+exercise itself in the production of pleasure as of pain?"
+
+Kindness does not consist in gifts, but in gentleness and generosity
+of spirit. Men may give their money which comes from the purse, and
+withhold their kindness which comes from the heart. The kindness that
+displays itself in giving money, does not amount to much, and often
+does quite as much harm as good; but the kindness of true sympathy, of
+thoughtful help, is never without beneficent results.
+
+The good temper that displays itself in kindness must not be confounded
+with softness or silliness. In its best form, it is not a merely passive
+but an active condition of being. It is not by any means indifferent,
+but largely sympathetic. It does not characterise the lowest and most
+gelatinous forms of human life, but those that are the most highly
+organized. True kindness cherishes and actively promotes all reasonable
+instrumentalities for doing practical good in its own time; and,
+looking into futurity, sees the same spirit working on for the eventual
+elevation and happiness of the race.
+
+It is the kindly-dispositioned men who are the active men of the
+world, while the selfish and the sceptical, who have no love but for
+themselves, are its idlers. Buffon used to say, that he would give
+nothing for a young man who did not begin life with an enthusiasm of
+some sort. It showed that at least he had faith in something good,
+lofty, and generous, even if unattainable.
+
+Egotism, scepticism, and selfishness are always miserable companions
+in life, and they are especially unnatural in youth. The egotist is
+next-door to a fanatic. Constantly occupied with self, he has no thought
+to spare for others. He refers to himself in all things, thinks of
+himself, and studies himself, until his own little self becomes his own
+little god.
+
+Worst of all are the grumblers and growlers at fortune--who find that
+"whatever is is wrong," and will do nothing to set matters right--who
+declare all to be barren "from Dan even to Beersheba." These grumblers
+are invariably found the least efficient helpers in the school of life.
+As the worst workmen are usually the readiest to "strike," so the least
+industrious members of society are the readiest to complain. The worst
+wheel of all is the one that creaks.
+
+There is such a thing as the cherishing of discontent until the feeling
+becomes morbid. The jaundiced see everything about them yellow. The
+ill-conditioned think all things awry, and the whole world out-of-joint.
+All is vanity and vexation of spirit. The little girl in PUNCH, who
+found her doll stuffed with bran, and forthwith declared everything to
+be hollow and wanted to "go into a nunnery," had her counterpart in real
+life. Many full-grown people are quite as morbidly unreasonable. There
+are those who may be said to "enjoy bad health;" they regard it as a
+sort of property. They can speak of "MY headache"--"MY backache," and
+so forth, until in course of time it becomes their most cherished
+possession. But perhaps it is the source to them of much coveted
+sympathy, without which they might find themselves of comparatively
+little importance in the world.
+
+We have to be on our guard against small troubles, which, by
+encouraging, we are apt to magnify into great ones. Indeed, the chief
+source of worry in the world is not real but imaginary evil--small
+vexations and trivial afflictions. In the presence of a great sorrow,
+all petty troubles disappear; but we are too ready to take some
+cherished misery to our bosom, and to pet it there. Very often it is the
+child of our fancy; and, forgetful of the many means of happiness which
+lie within our reach, we indulge this spoilt child of ours until
+it masters us. We shut the door against cheerfulness, and surround
+ourselves with gloom. The habit gives a colouring to our life. We grow
+querulous, moody, and unsympathetic. Our conversation becomes full of
+regrets. We are harsh in our judgment of others. We are unsociable, and
+think everybody else is so. We make our breast a storehouse of pain,
+which we inflict upon ourselves as well as upon others.
+
+This disposition is encouraged by selfishness: indeed, it is for the
+most part selfishness unmingled, without any admixture of sympathy
+or consideration for the feelings of those about us. It is simply
+wilfulness in the wrong direction. It is wilful, because it might be
+avoided. Let the necessitarians argue as they may, freedom of will and
+action is the possession of every man and woman. It is sometimes our
+glory, and very often it is our shame: all depends upon the manner in
+which it is used. We can choose to look at the bright side of things,
+or at the dark. We can follow good and eschew evil thoughts. We can be
+wrongheaded and wronghearted, or the reverse, as we ourselves determine.
+The world will be to each one of us very much what we make it. The
+cheerful are its real possessors, for the world belongs to those who
+enjoy it.
+
+It must, however, be admitted that there are cases beyond the reach of
+the moralist. Once, when a miserable-looking dyspeptic called upon a
+leading physician and laid his case before him, "Oh!" said the doctor,
+"you only want a good hearty laugh: go and see Grimaldi." "Alas!" said
+the miserable patient, "I am Grimaldi!" So, when Smollett, oppressed
+by disease, travelled over Europe in the hope of finding health, he
+saw everything through his own jaundiced eyes. "I'll tell it," said
+Smellfungus, "to the world." "You had better tell it," said Sterne, "to
+your physician." The restless, anxious, dissatisfied temper, that is
+ever ready to run and meet care half-way, is fatal to all happiness and
+peace of mind. How often do we see men and women set themselves about as
+if with stiff bristles, so that one dare scarcely approach them without
+fear of being pricked! For want of a little occasional command over
+one's temper, an amount of misery is occasioned in society which is
+positively frightful. Thus enjoyment is turned into bitterness, and
+life becomes like a journey barefooted amongst thorns and briers and
+prickles. "Though sometimes small evils," says Richard Sharp, "like
+invisible insects, inflict great pain, and a single hair may stop a vast
+machine, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles
+to vex us; and in prudently cultivating an undergrowth of small
+pleasures, since very few great ones, alas! are let on long leases." [175]
+
+St. Francis de Sales treats the same topic from the Christian's point
+of view. "How carefully," he says, "we should cherish the little virtues
+which spring up at the foot of the Cross!" When the saint was asked,
+"What virtues do you mean?" he replied: "Humility, patience, meekness,
+benignity, bearing one another's burden, condescension, softness
+of heart, cheerfulness, cordiality, compassion, forgiving injuries,
+simplicity, candour--all, in short of that sort of little virtues. They,
+like unobtrusive violets, love the shade; like them are sustained by
+dew; and though, like them, they make little show, they shed a sweet
+odour on all around." [176]
+
+And again he said: "If you would fall into any extreme, let it be on
+the side of gentleness. The human mind is so constructed that it resists
+rigour, and yields to softness. A mild word quenches anger, as water
+quenches the rage of fire; and by benignity any soil may be rendered
+fruitful. Truth, uttered with courtesy, is heaping coals of fire on the
+head--or rather, throwing roses in the face. How can we resist a foe
+whose weapons are pearls and diamonds?" [177]
+
+Meeting evils by anticipation is not the way to overcome them. If we
+perpetually carry our burdens about with us, they will soon bear us
+down under their load. When evil comes, we must deal with it bravely and
+hopefully. What Perthes wrote to a young man, who seemed to him inclined
+to take trifles as well as sorrows too much to heart, was doubtless good
+advice: "Go forward with hope and confidence. This is the advice given
+thee by an old man, who has had a full share of the burden and heat of
+life's day. We must ever stand upright, happen what may, and for this
+end we must cheerfully resign ourselves to the varied influences of this
+many-coloured life. You may call this levity, and you are partly right;
+for flowers and colours are but trifles light as air, but such levity is
+a constituent portion of our human nature, without which it would sink
+under the weight of time. While on earth we must still play with earth,
+and with that which blooms and fades upon its breast. The consciousness
+of this mortal life being but the way to a higher goal, by no means
+precludes our playing with it cheerfully; and, indeed, we must do so,
+otherwise our energy in action will entirely fail." [178]
+
+Cheerfulness also accompanies patience, which is one of the main
+conditions of happiness and success in life. "He that will be served,"
+says George Herbert, "must be patient." It was said of the cheerful and
+patient King Alfred, that "good fortune accompanied him like a gift of
+God." Marlborough's expectant calmness was great, and a principal secret
+of his success as a general. "Patience will overcome all things," he
+wrote to Godolphin, in 1702. In the midst of a great emergency, while
+baffled and opposed by his allies, he said, "Having done all that is
+possible, we should submit with patience."
+
+Last and chiefest of blessings is Hope, the most common of possessions;
+for, as Thales the philosopher said, "Even those who have nothing else
+have hope." Hope is the great helper of the poor. It has even been
+styled "the poor man's bread." It is also the sustainer and inspirer
+of great deeds. It is recorded of Alexander the Great, that when he
+succeeded to the throne of Macedon, he gave away amongst his friends
+the greater part of the estates which his father had left him; and when
+Perdiccas asked him what he reserved for himself, Alexander answered,
+"The greatest possession of all,--Hope!"
+
+The pleasures of memory, however great, are stale compared with those
+of hope; for hope is the parent of all effort and endeavour; and "every
+gift of noble origin is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath." It
+may be said to be the moral engine that moves the world, and keeps it in
+action; and at the end of all there stands before us what Robertson of
+Ellon styled "The Great Hope." "If it were not for Hope," said Byron,
+"where would the Future be?--in hell! It is useless to say where the
+Present is, for most of us know; and as for the Past, WHAT predominates
+in memory?--Hope baffled. ERGO, in all human affairs it is Hope, Hope,
+Hope!" [179]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.--MANNER--ART.
+
+
+
+     "We must be gentle, now we are gentlemen."--SHAKSPEARE.
+
+          "Manners are not idle, but the fruit
+           Of noble nature and of loyal mind."--TENNYSON.
+
+     "A beautiful behaviour is better than a beautiful form; it
+     gives a higher pleasure than statues and pictures; it is the
+     finest of the fine arts."--EMERSON.
+
+     "Manners are often too much neglected; they are most
+     important to men, no less than to women.... Life is too
+     short to get over a bad manner; besides, manners are the
+     shadows of virtues."--THE REV. SIDNEY SMITH.
+
+
+Manner is one of the principal external graces of character. It is the
+ornament of action, and often makes the commonest offices beautiful by
+the way in which it performs them. It is a happy way of doing things,
+adorning even the smallest details of life, and contributing to render
+it, as a whole, agreeable and pleasant.
+
+Manner is not so frivolous or unimportant as some may think it to be;
+for it tends greatly to facilitate the business of life, as well as
+to sweeten and soften social intercourse. "Virtue itself," says Bishop
+Middleton, "offends, when coupled with a forbidding manner."
+
+Manner has a good deal to do with the estimation in which men are held
+by the world; and it has often more influence in the government of
+others than qualities of much greater depth and substance. A manner at
+once gracious and cordial is among the greatest aids to success, and
+many there are who fail for want of it. [181] For a great deal depends
+upon first impressions; and these are usually favourable or otherwise
+according to a man's courteousness and civility.
+
+While rudeness and gruffness bar doors and shut hearts, kindness and
+propriety of behaviour, in which good manners consist, act as an "open
+sesame" everywhere. Doors unbar before them, and they are a passport to
+the hearts of everybody, young and old.
+
+There is a common saying that "Manners make the man;" but this is not so
+true as that "Man makes the manners." A man may be gruff, and even
+rude, and yet be good at heart and of sterling character; yet he would
+doubtless be a much more agreeable, and probably a much more useful man,
+were he to exhibit that suavity of disposition and courtesy of manner
+which always gives a finish to the true gentleman.
+
+Mrs. Hutchinson, in the noble portraiture of her husband, to which
+we have already had occasion to refer, thus describes his manly
+courteousness and affability of disposition:--"I cannot say whether
+he were more truly magnanimous or less proud; he never disdained the
+meanest person, nor flattered the greatest; he had a loving and sweet
+courtesy to the poorest, and would often employ many spare hours with
+the commonest soldiers and poorest labourers; but still so ordering his
+familiarity, that it never raised them to a contempt, but entertained
+still at the same time a reverence and love of him." [182]
+
+A man's manner, to a certain extent, indicates his character. It is
+the external exponent of his inner nature. It indicates his taste, his
+feelings, and his temper, as well as the society to which he has been
+accustomed. There is a conventional manner, which is of comparatively
+little importance; but the natural manner, the outcome of natural gifts,
+improved by careful self-culture, signifies a great deal.
+
+Grace of manner is inspired by sentiment, which is a source of no slight
+enjoyment to a cultivated mind. Viewed in this light, sentiment is of
+almost as much importance as talents and acquirements, while it is
+even more influential in giving the direction to a man s tastes and
+character. Sympathy is the golden key that unlocks the hearts of others.
+It not only teaches politeness and courtesy, but gives insight and
+unfolds wisdom, and may almost be regarded as the crowning grace of
+humanity.
+
+Artificial rules of politeness are of very little use. What passes by
+the name of "Etiquette" is often of the essence of unpoliteness and
+untruthfulness. It consists in a great measure of posture-making, and
+is easily seen through. Even at best, etiquette is but a substitute for
+good manners, though it is often but their mere counterfeit.
+
+Good manners consist, for the most part, in courteousness and kindness.
+Politeness has been described as the art of showing, by external signs,
+the internal regard we have for others. But one may be perfectly polite
+to another without necessarily having a special regard for him. Good
+manners are neither more nor less than beautiful behaviour. It has been
+well said, that "a beautiful form is better than a beautiful face, and
+a beautiful behaviour is better than a beautiful form; it gives a higher
+pleasure than statues or pictures--it is the finest of the fine arts."
+
+The truest politeness comes of sincerity. It must be the outcome of the
+heart, or it will make no lasting impression; for no amount of polish
+can dispense with truthfulness. The natural character must be allowed to
+appear, freed of its angularities and asperities. Though politeness,
+in its best form, should [18as St. Francis de Sales says] resemble
+water--"best when clearest, most simple, and without taste,"--yet genius
+in a man will always cover many defects of manner, and much will
+be excused to the strong and the original. Without genuineness and
+individuality, human life would lose much of its interest and variety,
+as well as its manliness and robustness of character.
+
+True courtesy is kind. It exhibits itself in the disposition to
+contribute to the happiness of others, and in refraining from all that
+may annoy them. It is grateful as well as kind, and readily acknowledges
+kind actions. Curiously enough, Captain Speke found this quality of
+character recognised even by the natives of Uganda on the shores of
+Lake Nyanza, in the heart of Africa, where, he says. "Ingratitude, or
+neglecting to thank a person for a benefit conferred, is punishable."
+
+True politeness especially exhibits itself in regard for the personality
+of others. A man will respect the individuality of another if he wishes
+to be respected himself. He will have due regard for his views and
+opinions, even though they differ from his own. The well-mannered man
+pays a compliment to another, and sometimes even secures his respect,
+by patiently listening to him. He is simply tolerant and forbearant, and
+refrains from judging harshly; and harsh judgments of others will almost
+invariably provoke harsh judgments of ourselves.
+
+The unpolite impulsive man will, however, sometimes rather lose his
+friend than his joke. He may surely be pronounced a very foolish person
+who secures another's hatred at the price of a moment's gratification.
+It was a saying of Brunel the engineer--himself one of the
+kindest-natured of men--that "spite and ill-nature are among the most
+expensive luxuries in life." Dr. Johnson once said: "Sir, a man has no
+more right to SAY an uncivil thing than to ACT one--no more right to say
+a rude thing to another than to knock him down."
+
+A sensible polite person does not assume to be better or wiser or richer
+than his neighbour. He does not boast of his rank, or his birth, or his
+country; or look down upon others because they have not been born to
+like privileges with himself. He does not brag of his achievements or
+of his calling, or "talk shop" whenever he opens his mouth. On the
+contrary, in all that he says or does, he will be modest, unpretentious,
+unassuming; exhibiting his true character in performing rather than in
+boasting, in doing rather than in talking.
+
+Want of respect for the feelings of others usually originates in
+selfishness, and issues in hardness and repulsiveness of manner. It may
+not proceed from malignity so much as from want of sympathy and want of
+delicacy--a want of that perception of, and attention to, those little
+and apparently trifling things by which pleasure is given or
+pain occasioned to others. Indeed, it may be said that in
+self-sacrificingness, so to speak, in the ordinary intercourse of life,
+mainly consists the difference between being well and ill bred.
+
+Without some degree of self-restraint in society, a man may be found
+almost insufferable. No one has pleasure in holding intercourse with
+such a person, and he is a constant source of annoyance to those about
+him. For want of self-restraint, many men are engaged all their lives
+in fighting with difficulties of their own making, and rendering success
+impossible by their own crossgrained ungentleness; whilst others, it
+may be much less gifted, make their way and achieve success by simple
+patience, equanimity, and self-control.
+
+It has been said that men succeed in life quite as much by their temper
+as by their talents. However this may be, it is certain that their
+happiness depends mainly on their temperament, especially upon their
+disposition to be cheerful; upon their complaisance, kindliness of
+manner, and willingness to oblige others--details of conduct which are
+like the small-change in the intercourse of life, and are always in
+request.
+
+Men may show their disregard of others in various unpolite ways--as,
+for instance, by neglect of propriety in dress, by the absence of
+cleanliness, or by indulging in repulsive habits. The slovenly dirty
+person, by rendering himself physically disagreeable, sets the tastes
+and feelings of others at defiance, and is rude and uncivil only under
+another form.
+
+David Ancillon, a Huguenot preacher of singular attractiveness, who
+studied and composed his sermons with the greatest care, was accustomed
+to say "that it was showing too little esteem for the public to take
+no pains in preparation, and that a man who should appear on a
+ceremonial-day in his nightcap and dressing-gown, could not commit a
+greater breach of civility."
+
+The perfection of manner is ease--that it attracts no man's notice
+as such, but is natural and unaffected. Artifice is incompatible with
+courteous frankness of manner. Rochefoucauld has said that "nothing so
+much prevents our being natural as the desire of appearing so." Thus we
+come round again to sincerity and truthfulness, which find their outward
+expression in graciousness, urbanity, kindliness, and consideration for
+the feelings of others. The frank and cordial man sets those about him
+at their ease. He warms and elevates them by his presence, and wins
+all hearts. Thus manner, in its highest form, like character, becomes a
+genuine motive power.
+
+"The love and admiration," says Canon Kingsley, "which that truly brave
+and loving man, Sir Sydney Smith, won from every one, rich and poor,
+with whom he came in contact seems to have arisen from the one fact,
+that without, perhaps, having any such conscious intention, he treated
+rich and poor, his own servants and the noblemen his guests, alike, and
+alike courteously, considerately, cheerfully, affectionately--so leaving
+a blessing, and reaping a blessing, wherever he went."
+
+Good manners are usually supposed to be the peculiar characteristic of
+persons gently born and bred, and of persons moving in the higher rather
+than in the lower spheres of society. And this is no doubt to a great
+extent true, because of the more favourable surroundings of the former
+in early life. But there is no reason why the poorest classes should not
+practise good manners towards each other as well as the richest.
+
+Men who toil with their hands, equally with those who do not, may
+respect themselves and respect one another; and it is by their demeanour
+to each other--in other words, by their manners--that self-respect as
+well as mutual respect are indicated. There is scarcely a moment in
+their lives, the enjoyment of which might not be enhanced by kindliness
+of this sort--in the workshop, in the street, or at home. The civil
+workman will exercise increased power amongst his class, and gradually
+induce them to imitate him by his persistent steadiness, civility, and
+kindness. Thus Benjamin Franklin, when a working-man, is said to have
+reformed the habits of an entire workshop.
+
+One may be polite and gentle with very little money in his purse.
+Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing. It is the cheapest of all
+commodities. It is the humblest of the fine arts, yet it is so useful
+and so pleasure-giving, that it might almost be ranked amongst the
+humanities.
+
+Every nation may learn something of others; and if there be one thing
+more than another that the English working-class might afford to
+copy with advantage from their Continental neighbours, it is their
+politeness. The French and Germans, of even the humblest classes, are
+gracious in manner, complaisant, cordial, and well-bred. The foreign
+workman lifts his cap and respectfully salutes his fellow-workman in
+passing. There is no sacrifice of manliness in this, but grace and
+dignity. Even the lowest poverty of the foreign workpeople is not
+misery, simply because it is cheerful. Though not receiving one-half the
+income which our working-classes do, they do not sink into wretchedness
+and drown their troubles in drink; but contrive to make the best of
+life, and to enjoy it even amidst poverty.
+
+Good taste is a true economist. It may be practised on small means,
+and sweeten the lot of labour as well as of ease. It is all the more
+enjoyed, indeed, when associated with industry and the performance of
+duty. Even the lot of poverty is elevated by taste. It exhibits itself
+in the economies of the household. It gives brightness and grace to the
+humblest dwelling. It produces refinement, it engenders goodwill, and
+creates an atmosphere of cheerfulness. Thus good taste, associated with
+kindliness, sympathy, and intelligence, may elevate and adorn even the
+lowliest lot.
+
+The first and best school of manners, as of character, is always the
+Home, where woman is the teacher. The manners of society at large are
+but the reflex of the manners of our collective homes, neither better
+nor worse. Yet, with all the disadvantages of ungenial homes, men may
+practise self-culture of manner as of intellect, and learn by good
+examples to cultivate a graceful and agreeable behaviour towards others.
+Most men are like so many gems in the rough, which need polishing by
+contact with other and better natures, to bring out their full beauty
+and lustre. Some have but one side polished, sufficient only to show the
+delicate graining of the interior; but to bring out the full qualities
+of the gem needs the discipline of experience, and contact with the best
+examples of character in the intercourse of daily life.
+
+A good deal of the success of manner consists in tact, and it is because
+women, on the whole, have greater tact than men, that they prove its
+most influential teachers. They have more self-restraint than men,
+and are naturally more gracious and polite. They possess an intuitive
+quickness and readiness of action, have a keener insight into character,
+and exhibit greater discrimination and address. In matters of social
+detail, aptness and dexterity come to them like nature; and hence
+well-mannered men usually receive their best culture by mixing in the
+society of gentle and adroit women.
+
+Tact is an intuitive art of manner, which carries one through a
+difficulty better than either talent or knowledge. "Talent," says a
+public writer, "is power: tact is skill. Talent is weight: tact is
+momentum. Talent knows what to do: tact knows how to do it. Talent makes
+a man respectable: tact makes him respected. Talent is wealth: tact is
+ready-money."
+
+The difference between a man of quick tact and of no tact whatever
+was exemplified in an interview which once took place between Lord
+Palmerston and Mr. Behnes, the sculptor. At the last sitting which Lord
+Palmerston gave him, Behnes opened the conversation with--"Any news,
+my Lord, from France? How do we stand with Louis Napoleon?" The Foreign
+Secretary raised his eyebrows for an instant, and quietly replied,
+"Really, Mr. Behnes, I don't know: I have not seen the newspapers!" Poor
+Behnes, with many excellent qualities and much real talent, was one of
+the many men who entirely missed their way in life through want of tact.
+
+Such is the power of manner, combined with tact, that Wilkes, one of the
+ugliest of men, used to say, that in winning the graces of a lady, there
+was not more than three days' difference between him and the handsomest
+man in England.
+
+But this reference to Wilkes reminds us that too much importance must
+not be attached to manner, for it does not afford any genuine test of
+character. The well-mannered man may, like Wilkes, be merely acting a
+part, and that for an immoral purpose. Manner, like other fine arts,
+gives pleasure, and is exceedingly agreeable to look upon; but it may be
+assumed as a disguise, as men "assume a virtue though they have it not."
+It is but the exterior sign of good conduct, but may be no more than
+skin-deep. The most highly-polished person may be thoroughly depraved
+in heart; and his superfine manners may, after all, only consist in
+pleasing gestures and in fine phrases.
+
+On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that some of the richest and
+most generous natures have been wanting in the graces of courtesy and
+politeness. As a rough rind sometimes covers the sweetest fruit, so a
+rough exterior often conceals a kindly and hearty nature. The blunt man
+may seem even rude in manner, and yet, at heart, be honest, kind, and
+gentle.
+
+John Knox and Martin Luther were by no means distinguished for their
+urbanity. They had work to do which needed strong and determined
+rather than well-mannered men. Indeed, they were both thought to be
+unnecessarily harsh and violent in their manner. "And who art thou,"
+said Mary Queen of Scots to Knox, "that presumest to school the nobles
+and sovereign of this realm?"--"Madam," replied Knox, "a subject born
+within the same." It is said that his boldness, or roughness, more than
+once made Queen Mary weep. When Regent Morton heard of this, he said,
+"Well, 'tis better that women should weep than bearded men."
+
+As Knox was retiring from the Queen's presence on one occasion, he
+overheard one of the royal attendants say to another, "He is not
+afraid!" Turning round upon them, he said: "And why should the pleasing
+face of a gentleman frighten me? I have looked on the faces of angry
+men, and yet have not been afraid beyond measure." When the Reformer,
+worn-out by excess of labour and anxiety, was at length laid to his
+rest, the Regent, looking down into the open grave, exclaimed, in words
+which made a strong impression from their aptness and truth--"There lies
+he who never feared the face of man!"
+
+Luther also was thought by some to be a mere compound of violence and
+ruggedness. But, as in the case of Knox, the times in which he lived
+were rude and violent; and the work he had to do could scarcely have
+been accomplished with gentleness and suavity. To rouse Europe from its
+lethargy, he had to speak and to write with force, and even vehemence.
+Yet Luther's vehemence was only in words. His apparently rude exterior
+covered a warm heart. In private life he was gentle, loving, and
+affectionate. He was simple and homely, even to commonness. Fond of all
+common pleasures and enjoyments, he was anything but an austere man,
+or a bigot; for he was hearty, genial, and even "jolly." Luther was the
+common people's hero in his lifetime, and he remains so in Germany to
+this day.
+
+Samuel Johnson was rude and often gruff in manner. But he had been
+brought up in a rough school. Poverty in early life had made him
+acquainted with strange companions. He had wandered in the streets with
+Savage for nights together, unable between them to raise money enough
+to pay for a bed. When his indomitable courage and industry at length
+secured for him a footing in society, he still bore upon him the scars
+of his early sorrows and struggles. He was by nature strong and robust,
+and his experience made him unaccommodating and self-asserting. When
+he was once asked why he was not invited to dine out as Garrick was,
+he answered, "Because great lords and ladies did not like to have their
+mouths stopped;" and Johnson was a notorious mouth-stopper, though what
+he said was always worth listening to.
+
+Johnson's companions spoke of him as "Ursa Major;" but, as Goldsmith
+generously said of him, "No man alive has a more tender heart; he has
+nothing of the bear about him but his skin." The kindliness of Johnson's
+nature was shown on one occasion by the manner in which he assisted a
+supposed lady in crossing Fleet Street. He gave her his arm, and led her
+across, not observing that she was in liquor at the time. But the spirit
+of the act was not the less kind on that account. On the other hand,
+the conduct of the bookseller on whom Johnson once called to solicit
+employment, and who, regarding his athletic but uncouth person, told him
+he had better "go buy a porter's knot and carry trunks," in howsoever
+bland tones the advice might have been communicated, was simply brutal.
+
+While captiousness of manner, and the habit of disputing and
+contradicting everything said, is chilling and repulsive, the opposite
+habit of assenting to, and sympathising with, every statement made, or
+emotion expressed, is almost equally disagreeable. It is unmanly, and is
+felt to be dishonest. "It may seem difficult," says Richard Sharp, "to
+steer always between bluntness and plain-dealing, between giving
+merited praise and lavishing indiscriminate flattery; but it is very
+easy--good-humour, kindheartedness, and perfect simplicity, being all
+that are requisite to do what is right in the right way." [183]
+
+At the same time, many are unpolite--not because they mean to be so, but
+because they are awkward, and perhaps know no better. Thus, when Gibbon
+had published the second and third volumes of his 'Decline and Fall,'
+the Duke of Cumberland met him one day, and accosted him with, "How do
+you do, Mr. Gibbon? I see you are always AT IT in the old way--SCRIBBLE,
+SCRIBBLE, SCRIBBLE!" The Duke probably intended to pay the author a
+compliment, but did not know how better to do it, than in this blunt and
+apparently rude way.
+
+Again, many persons are thought to be stiff, reserved, and proud, when
+they are only shy. Shyness is characteristic of most people of Teutonic
+race. It has been styled "the English mania," but it pervades, to
+a greater or less degree, all the Northern nations. The ordinary
+Englishman, when he travels abroad, carries his shyness with him. He
+is stiff, awkward, ungraceful, undemonstrative, and apparently
+unsympathetic; and though he may assume a brusqueness of manner, the
+shyness is there, and cannot be wholly concealed. The naturally graceful
+and intensely social French cannot understand such a character; and the
+Englishman is their standing joke--the subject of their most ludicrous
+caricatures. George Sand attributes the rigidity of the natives of
+Albion to a stock of FLUIDE BRITANNIQUE which they carry about with
+them, that renders them impassive under all circumstances, and "as
+impervious to the atmosphere of the regions they traverse as a mouse in
+the centre of an exhausted receiver." [184]
+
+The average Frenchman or Irishman excels the average Englishman, German,
+or American in courtesy and ease of manner, simply because it is
+his nature. They are more social and less self-dependent than men of
+Teutonic origin, more demonstrative and less reticent; they are more
+communicative, conversational, and freer in their intercourse with
+each other in all respects; whilst men of German race are comparatively
+stiff, reserved, shy, and awkward. At the same time, a people may
+exhibit ease, gaiety, and sprightliness of character, and yet possess
+no deeper qualities calculated to inspire respect. They may have every
+grace of manner, and yet be heartless, frivolous, selfish. The character
+may be on the surface only, and without any solid qualities for a
+foundation.
+
+There can be no doubt as to which of the two sorts of people--the easy
+and graceful, or the stiff and awkward--it is most agreeable to meet,
+either in business, in society, or in the casual intercourse of life.
+Which make the fastest friends, the truest men of their word, the most
+conscientious performers of their duty, is an entirely different matter.
+
+The dry GAUCHE Englishman--to use the French phrase, L'ANGLAIS
+EMPETRE--is certainly a somewhat disagreeable person to meet at first.
+He looks as if he had swallowed a poker. He is shy himself, and the
+cause of shyness in others. He is stiff, not because he is proud, but
+because he is shy; and he cannot shake it off, even if he would. Indeed,
+we should not be surprised to find that even the clever writer who
+describes the English Philistine in all his enormity of awkward manner
+and absence of grace, were himself as shy as a bat.
+
+When two shy men meet, they seem like a couple of icicles. They sidle
+away and turn their backs on each other in a room, or when travelling
+creep into the opposite corners of a railway-carriage. When shy
+Englishmen are about to start on a journey by railway, they walk
+along the train, to discover an empty compartment in which to bestow
+themselves; and when once ensconced, they inwardly hate the next man who
+comes in. So; on entering the dining-room of their club, each shy man
+looks out for an unoccupied table, until sometimes--all the tables in
+the room are occupied by single diners. All this apparent unsociableness
+is merely shyness--the national characteristic of the Englishman.
+
+"The disciples of Confucius," observes Mr. Arthur Helps, "say that
+when in the presence of the prince, his manner displayed RESPECTFUL
+UNEASINESS. There could hardly be given any two words which more fitly
+describe the manner of most Englishmen when in society." Perhaps it
+is due to this feeling that Sir Henry Taylor, in his 'Statesman,'
+recommends that, in the management of interviews, the minister should
+be as "near to the door" as possible; and, instead of bowing his visitor
+out, that he should take refuge, at the end of an interview, in the
+adjoining room. "Timid and embarrassed men," he says, "will sit as if
+they were rooted to the spot, when they are conscious that they have
+to traverse the length of a room in their retreat. In every case, an
+interview will find a more easy and pleasing termination WHEN THE DOOR
+IS AT HAND as the last words are spoken." [185]
+
+The late Prince Albert, one of the gentlest and most amiable, was also
+one of the most retiring of men. He struggled much against his sense
+of shyness, but was never able either to conquer or conceal it. His
+biographer, in explaining its causes, says: "It was the shyness of a
+very delicate nature, that is not sure it will please, and is without
+the confidence and the vanity which often go to form characters that are
+outwardly more genial." [186]
+
+But the Prince shared this defect with some of the greatest of
+Englishmen. Sir Isaac Newton was probably the shyest man of his age. He
+kept secret for a time some of his greatest discoveries, for fear of the
+notoriety they might bring him. His discovery of the Binomial Theorem
+and its most important applications, as well as his still greater
+discovery of the Law of Gravitation, were not published for years after
+they were made; and when he communicated to Collins his solution of the
+theory of the moon's rotation round the earth, he forbade him to insert
+his name in connection with it in the 'Philosophical Transactions,'
+saying: "It would, perhaps, increase my acquaintance--the thing which I
+chiefly study to decline."
+
+From all that can be learnt of Shakspeare, it is to be inferred that he
+was an exceedingly shy man. The manner in which his plays were sent
+into the world--for it is not known that he edited or authorized
+the publication of a single one of them--and the dates at which they
+respectively appeared, are mere matters of conjecture. His appearance in
+his own plays in second and even third-rate parts--his indifference to
+reputation, and even his apparent aversion to be held in repute by his
+contemporaries--his disappearance from London [18the seat and centre
+of English histrionic art] so soon as he had realised a moderate
+competency--and his retirement about the age of forty, for the remainder
+of his days, to a life of obscurity in a small town in the midland
+counties--all seem to unite in proving the shrinking nature of the man,
+and his unconquerable shyness.
+
+It is also probable that, besides being shy--and his shyness may, like
+that of Byron, have been increased by his limp--Shakspeare did not
+possess in any high degree the gift of hope. It is a remarkable
+circumstance, that whilst the great dramatist has, in the course of
+his writings, copiously illustrated all other gifts, affections, and
+virtues, the passages are very rare in which Hope is mentioned, and then
+it is usually in a desponding and despairing tone, as when he says:
+
+      "The miserable hath no other medicine, But only Hope."
+
+Many of his sonnets breathe the spirit of despair and hopelessness. [187]
+He laments his lameness; [188] apologizes for his profession as an actor;
+[189] expresses his "fear of trust" in himself, and his hopeless, perhaps
+misplaced, affection; [1810] anticipates a "coffin'd doom;" and utters his
+profoundly pathetic cry "for restful death."
+
+It might naturally be supposed that Shakspeare's profession of an actor,
+and his repeated appearances in public, would speedily overcome his
+shyness, did such exist. But inborn shyness, when strong, is not so
+easily conquered. [1811] Who could have believed that the late Charles
+Mathews, who entertained crowded houses night after night, was naturally
+one of the shyest of men? He would even make long circuits [18lame though
+he was] along the byelanes of London to avoid recognition. His wife says
+of him, that he looked "sheepish" and confused if recognised; and that
+his eyes would fall, and his colour would mount, if he heard his name
+even whispered in passing along the streets. [1812]
+
+Nor would it at first sight have been supposed that Lord Byron was
+affected with shyness, and yet he was a victim to it; his biographer
+relating that, while on a visit to Mrs. Pigot, at Southwell, when he saw
+strangers approaching, he would instantly jump out of the window, and
+escape on to the lawn to avoid them.
+
+But a still more recent and striking instance is that of the late
+Archbishop Whately, who, in the early part of his life, was painfully
+oppressed by the sense of shyness. When at Oxford, his white rough coat
+and white hat obtained for him the soubriquet of "The White Bear;" and
+his manners, according to his own account of himself, corresponded with
+the appellation. He was directed, by way of remedy, to copy the example
+of the best-mannered men he met in society; but the attempt to do this
+only increased his shyness, and he failed. He found that he was all the
+while thinking of himself, rather than of others; whereas thinking of
+others, rather than of one's self, is of the true essence of politeness.
+
+Finding that he was making no progress, Whately was driven to utter
+despair; and then he said to himself: "Why should I endure this torture
+all my life to no purpose? I would bear it still if there was any
+success to be hoped for; but since there is not, I will die quietly,
+without taking any more doses. I have tried my very utmost, and find
+that I must be as awkward as a bear all my life, in spite of it. I will
+endeavour to think as little about it as a bear, and make up my mind to
+endure what can't be cured." From this time forth he struggled to shake
+off all consciousness as to manner, and to disregard censure as much
+as possible. In adopting this course, he says: "I succeeded beyond
+my expectations; for I not only got rid of the personal suffering of
+shyness, but also of most of those faults of manner which consciousness
+produces; and acquired at once an easy and natural manner--careless,
+indeed, in the extreme, from its originating in a stern defiance of
+opinion, which I had convinced myself must be ever against me; rough
+and awkward, for smoothness and grace are quite out of my way, and,
+of course, tutorially pedantic; but unconscious, and therefore giving
+expression to that goodwill towards men which I really feel; and these,
+I believe, are the main points." [1813]
+
+Washington, who was an Englishman in his lineage, was also one in his
+shyness. He is described incidentally by Mr. Josiah Quincy, as "a
+little stiff in his person, not a little formal in his manner, and not
+particularly at ease in the presence of strangers. He had the air of
+a country gentleman not accustomed to mix much in society, perfectly
+polite, but not easy in his address and conversation, and not graceful
+in his movements."
+
+Although we are not accustomed to think of modern Americans as shy, the
+most distinguished American author of our time was probably the shyest
+of men. Nathaniel Hawthorne was shy to the extent of morbidity. We have
+observed him, when a stranger entered the room where he was, turn his
+back for the purpose of avoiding recognition. And yet, when the crust
+of his shyness was broken, no man could be more cordial and genial than
+Hawthorne.
+
+We observe a remark in one of Hawthorne's lately-published 'Notebooks,'
+[1814] that on one occasion he met Mr. Helps in society, and found him
+"cold." And doubtless Mr. Helps thought the same of him. It was only the
+case of two shy men meeting, each thinking the other stiff and reserved,
+and parting before their mutual film of shyness had been removed by a
+little friendly intercourse. Before pronouncing a hasty judgment in such
+cases, it would be well to bear in mind the motto of Helvetius, which
+Bentham says proved such a real treasure to him: "POUR AIMER LES HOMMES,
+IL FAUT ATTENDRE PEU."
+
+We have thus far spoken of shyness as a defect. But there is another way
+of looking at it; for even shyness has its bright side, and contains
+an element of good. Shy men and shy races are ungraceful and
+undemonstrative, because, as regards society at large, they are
+comparatively unsociable. They do not possess those elegances of manner,
+acquired by free intercourse, which distinguish the social races,
+because their tendency is to shun society rather than to seek it.
+They are shy in the presence of strangers, and shy even in their own
+families. They hide their affections under a robe of reserve, and when
+they do give way to their feelings, it is only in some very hidden
+inner-chamber. And yet the feelings ARE there, and not the less healthy
+and genuine that they are not made the subject of exhibition to others.
+
+It was not a little characteristic of the ancient Germans, that the more
+social and demonstrative peoples by whom they were surrounded should
+have characterised them as the NIEMEC, or Dumb men. And the same
+designation might equally apply to the modern English, as compared, for
+example, with their nimbler, more communicative and vocal, and in all
+respects more social neighbours, the modern French and Irish.
+
+But there is one characteristic which marks the English people, as it
+did the races from which they have mainly sprung, and that is
+their intense love of Home. Give the Englishman a home, and he is
+comparatively indifferent to society. For the sake of a holding which he
+can call his own, he will cross the seas, plant himself on the prairie
+or amidst the primeval forest, and make for himself a home. The solitude
+of the wilderness has no fears for him; the society of his wife and
+family is sufficient, and he cares for no other. Hence it is that the
+people of Germanic origin, from whom the English and Americans have
+alike sprung, make the best of colonizers, and are now rapidly extending
+themselves as emigrants and settlers in all parts of the habitable
+globe.
+
+The French have never made any progress as colonizers, mainly because
+of their intense social instincts--the secret of their graces of
+manner,--and because they can never forget that they are Frenchmen. [1815]
+It seemed at one time within the limits of probability that the French
+would occupy the greater part of the North American continent. From
+Lower Canada their line of forts extended up the St. Lawrence, and from
+Fond du Lac on Lake Superior, along the River St. Croix, all down the
+Mississippi, to its mouth at New Orleans. But the great, self-reliant,
+industrious "Niemec," from a fringe of settlements along the seacoast,
+silently extended westward, settling and planting themselves everywhere
+solidly upon the soil; and nearly all that now remains of the original
+French occupation of America, is the French colony of Acadia, in Lower
+Canada.
+
+And even there we find one of the most striking illustrations of
+that intense sociability of the French which keeps them together, and
+prevents their spreading over and planting themselves firmly in a new
+country, as it is the instinct of the men of Teutonic race to do. While,
+in Upper Canada, the colonists of English and Scotch descent penetrate
+the forest and the wilderness, each settler living, it may be, miles
+apart from his nearest neighbour, the Lower Canadians of French descent
+continue clustered together in villages, usually consisting of a line of
+houses on either side of the road, behind which extend their long
+strips of farm-land, divided and subdivided to an extreme tenuity. They
+willingly submit to all the inconveniences of this method of farming for
+the sake of each other's society, rather than betake themselves to the
+solitary backwoods, as English, Germans, and Americans so readily do.
+Indeed, not only does the American backwoodsman become accustomed to
+solitude, but he prefers it. And in the Western States, when settlers
+come too near him, and the country seems to become "overcrowded," he
+retreats before the advance of society, and, packing up his "things" in
+a waggon, he sets out cheerfully, with his wife and family, to found for
+himself a new home in the Far West.
+
+Thus the Teuton, because of his very shyness, is the true colonizer.
+English, Scotch, Germans, and Americans are alike ready to accept
+solitude, provided they can but establish a home and maintain a family.
+Thus their comparative indifference to society has tended to spread this
+race over the earth, to till and to subdue it; while the intense social
+instincts of the French, though issuing in much greater gracefulness of
+manner, has stood in their way as colonizers; so that, in the countries
+in which they have planted themselves--as in Algiers and elsewhere--they
+have remained little more than garrisons. [1816]
+
+There are other qualities besides these, which grow out of the
+comparative unsociableness of the Englishman. His shyness throws him
+back upon himself, and renders him self-reliant and self-dependent.
+Society not being essential to his happiness, he takes refuge in
+reading, in study, in invention; or he finds pleasure in industrial
+work, and becomes the best of mechanics. He does not fear to entrust
+himself to the solitude of the ocean, and he becomes a fisherman, a
+sailor, a discoverer. Since the early Northmen scoured the northern
+seas, discovered America, and sent their fleets along the shores of
+Europe and up the Mediterranean, the seamanship of the men of Teutonic
+race has always been in the ascendant.
+
+The English are inartistic for the same reason that they are unsociable.
+They may make good colonists, sailors, and mechanics; but they do not
+make good singers, dancers, actors, artistes, or modistes. They neither
+dress well, act well, speak well, nor write well. They want style--they
+want elegance. What they have to do they do in a straightforward manner,
+but without grace. This was strikingly exhibited at an International
+Cattle Exhibition held at Paris a few years ago. At the close of the
+Exhibition, the competitors came up with the prize animals to receive
+the prizes. First came a gay and gallant Spaniard, a magnificent man,
+beautifully dressed, who received a prize of the lowest class with an
+air and attitude that would have become a grandee of the highest
+order. Then came Frenchmen and Italians, full of grace, politeness, and
+CHIC--themselves elegantly dressed, and their animals decorated to the
+horns with flowers and coloured ribbons harmoniously blended. And
+last of all came the exhibitor who was to receive the first prize--a
+slouching man, plainly dressed, with a pair of farmer's gaiters on,
+and without even a flower in his buttonhole. "Who is he?" asked
+the spectators. "Why, he is the Englishman," was the reply. "The
+Englishman!--that the representative of a great country!" was the
+general exclamation. But it was the Englishman all over. He was sent
+there, not to exhibit himself, but to show "the best beast," and he did
+it, carrying away the first prize. Yet he would have been nothing the
+worse for the flower in his buttonhole.
+
+To remedy this admitted defect of grace and want of artistic taste
+in the English people, a school has sprung up amongst us for the more
+general diffusion of fine art. The Beautiful has now its teachers and
+preachers, and by some it is almost regarded in the light of a religion.
+"The Beautiful is the Good"--"The Beautiful is the True"--"The Beautiful
+is the priest of the Benevolent," are among their texts. It is believed
+that by the study of art the tastes of the people may be improved; that
+by contemplating objects of beauty their nature will become purified;
+and that by being thereby withdrawn from sensual enjoyments, their
+character will be refined and elevated.
+
+But though such culture is calculated to be elevating and purifying in
+a certain degree, we must not expect too much from it. Grace is a
+sweetener and embellisher of life, and as such is worthy of cultivation.
+Music, painting, dancing, and the fine arts, are all sources of
+pleasure; and though they may not be sensual, yet they are sensuous,
+and often nothing more. The cultivation of a taste for beauty of form
+or colour, of sound or attitude, has no necessary effect upon the
+cultivation of the mind or the development of the character. The
+contemplation of fine works of art will doubtless improve the taste, and
+excite admiration; but a single noble action done in the sight of men
+will more influence the mind, and stimulate the character to imitation,
+than the sight of miles of statuary or acres of pictures. For it is
+mind, soul, and heart--not taste or art--that make men great.
+
+It is indeed doubtful whether the cultivation of art--which usually
+ministers to luxury--has done so much for human progress as is generally
+supposed. It is even possible that its too exclusive culture may
+effeminate rather than strengthen the character, by laying it more open
+to the temptations of the senses. "It is the nature of the imaginative
+temperament cultivated by the arts," says Sir Henry Taylor, "to
+undermine the courage, and, by abating strength of character, to render
+men more easily subservient--SEQUACES, CEREOS, ET AD MANDATA DUCTILES."
+[1817] The gift of the artist greatly differs from that of the thinker;
+his highest idea is to mould his subject--whether it be of painting, or
+music, or literature--into that perfect grace of form in which thought
+[18it may not be of the deepest] finds its apotheosis and immortality.
+
+Art has usually flourished most during the decadence of nations, when
+it has been hired by wealth as the minister of luxury. Exquisite art
+and degrading corruption were contemporary in Greece as well as in Rome.
+Phidias and Iktinos had scarcely completed the Parthenon, when the glory
+of Athens had departed; Phidias died in prison; and the Spartans set up
+in the city the memorials of their own triumph and of Athenian defeat.
+It was the same in ancient Rome, where art was at its greatest height
+when the people were in their most degraded condition. Nero was an
+artist, as well as Domitian, two of the greatest monsters of the Empire.
+If the "Beautiful" had been the "Good," Commodus must have been one of
+the best of men. But according to history he was one of the worst.
+
+Again, the greatest period of modern Roman art was that in which Pope
+Leo X. flourished, of whose reign it has been said, that "profligacy and
+licentiousness prevailed amongst the people and clergy, as they had done
+almost uncontrolled ever since the pontificate of Alexander VI." In like
+manner, the period at which art reached its highest point in the Low
+Countries was that which immediately succeeded the destruction of civil
+and religious liberty, and the prostration of the national life
+under the despotism of Spain. If art could elevate a nation, and
+the contemplation of The Beautiful were calculated to make men The
+Good--then Paris ought to contain a population of the wisest and best
+of human beings. Rome also is a great city of art; and yet there,
+the VIRTUS or valour of the ancient Romans has characteristically
+degenerated into VERTU, or a taste for knicknacks; whilst, according to
+recent accounts, the city itself is inexpressibly foul. [1818]
+
+Art would sometimes even appear to have a close connection with dirt;
+and it is said of Mr. Ruskin, that when searching for works of art in
+Venice, his attendant in his explorations would sniff an ill-odour, and
+when it was strong would say, "Now we are coming to something very
+old and fine!"--meaning in art. [1819] A little common education in
+cleanliness, where it is wanting, would probably be much more improving,
+as well as wholesome, than any amount of education in fine art. Ruffles
+are all very well, but it is folly to cultivate them to the neglect of
+the shirt.
+
+Whilst, therefore, grace of manner, politeness of behaviour, elegance
+of demeanour, and all the arts that contribute to make life pleasant and
+beautiful, are worthy of cultivation, it must not be at the expense
+of the more solid and enduring qualities of honesty, sincerity, and
+truthfulness. The fountain of beauty must be in the heart; more than
+in the eye, and if art do not tend to produce beautiful life and noble
+practice, it will be of comparatively little avail. Politeness of manner
+is not worth much, unless accompanied by polite action. Grace may be but
+skin-deep--very pleasant and attractive, and yet very heartless. Art is
+a source of innocent enjoyment, and an important aid to higher culture;
+but unless it leads to higher culture, it will probably be merely
+sensuous. And when art is merely sensuous, it is enfeebling and
+demoralizing rather than strengthening or elevating. Honest courage
+is of greater worth than any amount of grace; purity is better than
+elegance; and cleanliness of body, mind, and heart, than any amount of
+fine art.
+
+In fine, while the cultivation of the graces is not to be neglected,
+it should ever be held in mind that there is something far higher and
+nobler to be aimed at--greater than pleasure, greater than art, greater
+than wealth, greater than power, greater than intellect, greater than
+genius--and that is, purity and excellence of character. Without a solid
+sterling basis of individual goodness, all the grace, elegance, and art
+in the world would fail to save or to elevate a people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X--COMPANIONSHIP OF BOOKS.
+
+
+
+                         "Books, we know,
+      Are a substantial world, both pure and good,
+      Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
+      Our pastime and our happiness can grow."--WORDSWORTH.
+
+     "Not only in the common speech of men, but in all art too--
+     which is or should be the concentrated and conserved essence
+     of what men can speak and show--Biography is almost the one
+     thing needful" --CARLYLE.
+
+
+     "I read all biographies with intense interest. Even a man
+     without a heart, like Cavendish, I think about, and read
+     about, and dream about, and picture to myself in all
+     possible ways, till he grows into a living being beside me,
+     and I put my feet into his shoes, and become for the time
+     Cavendish, and think as he thought, and do as he did."
+     --GEORGE WILSON.
+
+          "My thoughts are with the dead; with them
+            I live in long-past years;
+          Their virtues love, their faults condemn;
+            Partake their hopes and fears;
+          And from their lessons seek and find
+            Instruction with a humble mind."--SOUTHEY.
+
+A man may usually be known by the books he reads, as well as by the
+company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of
+men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of
+books or of men.
+
+A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same to-day
+that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and
+cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of
+adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness;
+amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in
+age.
+
+Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they
+have for a book--just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the
+admiration which both entertain for a third. There is an old proverb,
+"Love me, love my dog." But there is more wisdom in this: "Love me, love
+my book." The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think,
+feel, and sympathise with each other through their favourite author.
+They live in him together, and he in them.
+
+"Books," said Hazlitt, "wind into the heart; the poet's verse slides
+into the current of our blood. We read them when young, we remember them
+when old. We read there of what has happened to others; we feel that it
+has happened to ourselves. They are to be had everywhere cheap and good.
+We breathe but the air of books. We owe everything to their authors, on
+this side barbarism."
+
+A good book is often the best urn of a life, enshrining the best
+thoughts of which that life was capable; for the world of a man's life
+is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the
+best books are treasuries of good words and golden thoughts, which,
+remembered and cherished, become our abiding companions and comforters.
+"They are never alone," said Sir Philip Sidney, "that are accompanied by
+noble thoughts." The good and true thought may in time of temptation be
+as an angel of mercy purifying and guarding the soul. It also enshrines
+the germs of action, for good words almost invariably inspire to good
+works.
+
+Thus Sir Henry Lawrence prized above all other compositions Wordsworth's
+'Character of the Happy Warrior,' which he endeavoured to embody in
+his own life. It was ever before him as an exemplar. He thought of it
+continually, and often quoted it to others. His biographer says: "He
+tried to conform his own life and to assimilate his own character to it;
+and he succeeded, as all men succeed who are truly in earnest." [191]
+
+Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most
+lasting products of human effort. Temples crumble into ruin; pictures
+and statues decay; but books survive. Time is of no account with great
+thoughts, which are as fresh to-day as when they first passed through
+their authors' minds ages ago. What was then said and thought still
+speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect
+of time has been to sift and winnow out the bad products; for nothing in
+literature can long survive but what is really good. [192]
+
+Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the
+presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what
+they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we are
+participators in their thoughts; we sympathise with them, enjoy with
+them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if
+we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe.
+
+The great and good do not die, even in this world. Embalmed in books
+their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an
+intellect to which one still listens. Hence we ever remain under the
+influence of the great men of old:
+
+         "The dead but sceptred sovrans, who still rule
+          Our spirits from their urns."
+
+The imperial intellects of the world are as much alive now as they were
+ages ago. Homer still lives; and though his personal history is hidden
+in the mists of antiquity, his poems are as fresh to-day as if they had
+been newly written. Plato still teaches his transcendent philosophy;
+Horace, Virgil, and Dante still sing as when they lived; Shakspeare is
+not dead: his body was buried in 1616, but his mind is as much alive
+in England now, and his thought as far-reaching, as in the time of the
+Tudors.
+
+The humblest and poorest may enter the society of these great spirits
+without being thought intrusive. All who can read have got the ENTREE.
+Would you laugh?--Cervantes or Rabelais will laugh with you. Do you
+grieve?--there is Thomas a Kempis or Jeremy Taylor to grieve with
+and console you. Always it is to books, and the spirits of great men
+embalmed in them, that we turn, for entertainment, for instruction and
+solace--in joy and in sorrow, as in prosperity and in adversity.
+
+Man himself is, of all things in the world, the most interesting to
+man. Whatever relates to human life--its experiences, its joys, its
+sufferings, and its achievements--has usually attractions for him beyond
+all else. Each man is more or less interested in all other men as his
+fellow-creatures--as members of the great family of humankind; and the
+larger a man's culture, the wider is the range of his sympathies in all
+that affects the welfare of his race.
+
+Men's interest in each other as individuals manifests itself in a
+thousand ways--in the portraits which they paint, in the busts which
+they carve, in the narratives which they relate of each other. "Man,"
+says Emerson, "can paint, or make, or think, nothing but Man." Most of
+all is this interest shown in the fascination which personal history
+possesses for him. "Man s sociality of nature," says Carlyle, "evinces
+itself, in spite of all that can be said, with abundance of evidence, by
+this one fact, were there no other: the unspeakable delight he takes in
+Biography."
+
+Great, indeed, is the human interest felt in biography! What are all
+the novels that find such multitudes of readers, but so many fictitious
+biographies? What are the dramas that people crowd to see, but so much
+acted biography? Strange that the highest genius should be employed on
+the fictitious biography, and so much commonplace ability on the real!
+
+Yet the authentic picture of any human being's life and experience ought
+to possess an interest greatly beyond that which is fictitious, inasmuch
+as it has the charm of reality. Every person may learn something from
+the recorded life of another; and even comparatively trivial deeds and
+sayings may be invested with interest, as being the outcome of the lives
+of such beings as we ourselves are.
+
+The records of the lives of good men are especially useful. They
+influence our hearts, inspire us with hope, and set before us great
+examples. And when men have done their duty through life in a great
+spirit, their influence will never wholly pass away. "The good life,"
+says George Herbert, "is never out of season."
+
+Goethe has said that there is no man so commonplace that a wise man may
+not learn something from him. Sir Walter Scott could not travel in a
+coach without gleaning some information or discovering some new trait
+of character in his companions. [193] Dr. Johnson once observed that
+there was not a person in the streets but he should like to know his
+biography--his experiences of life, his trials, his difficulties, his
+successes, and his failures. How much more truly might this be said
+of the men who have made their mark in the world's history, and have
+created for us that great inheritance of civilization of which we are
+the possessors! Whatever relates to such men--to their habits,
+their manners, their modes of living, their personal history, their
+conversation, their maxims, their virtues, or their greatness--is always
+full of interest, of instruction, of encouragement, and of example.
+
+The great lesson of Biography is to show what man can be and do at his
+best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to
+others. It exhibits what life is capable of being made. It refreshes
+our spirit, encourages our hopes, gives us new strength and courage
+and faith--faith in others as well as in ourselves. It stimulates our
+aspirations, rouses us to action, and incites us to become co-partners
+with them in their work. To live with such men in their biographies, and
+to be inspired by their example, is to live with the best of men, and to
+mix in the best of company.
+
+At the head of all biographies stands the Great Biography, the Book
+of Books. And what is the Bible, the most sacred and impressive of all
+books--the educator of youth, the guide of manhood, and the consoler
+of age--but a series of biographies of great heroes and patriarchs,
+prophets, kings, and judges, culminating in the greatest biography of
+all, the Life embodied in the New Testament? How much have the great
+examples there set forth done for mankind! How many have drawn from
+them their truest strength, their highest wisdom, their best nurture and
+admonition! Truly does a great Roman Catholic writer describe the Bible
+as a book whose words "live in the ear like a music that can never be
+forgotten--like the sound of church bells which the convert hardly knows
+how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather
+than mere words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of
+national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it, The potent
+traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of
+all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the
+representative of his best moments, and all that has been about him of
+soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks to him for
+ever out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt has
+never dimmed and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of
+the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of religiousness about
+him whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible." [194]
+
+It would, indeed, be difficult to overestimate the influence which the
+lives of the great and good have exercised upon the elevation of human
+character. "The best biography," says Isaac Disraeli, "is a reunion with
+human existence in its most excellent state." Indeed, it is impossible
+for one to read the lives of good men, much less inspired men,
+without being unconsciously lighted and lifted up in them, and growing
+insensibly nearer to what they thought and did. And even the lives of
+humbler persons, of men of faithful and honest spirit, who have done
+their duty in life well, are not without an elevating influence upon the
+character of those who come after them.
+
+History itself is best studied in biography. Indeed, history is
+biography--collective humanity as influenced and governed by individual
+men. "What is all history," says Emerson, "but the work of ideas, a
+record of the incomparable energy which his infinite aspirations
+infuse into man?" In its pages it is always persons we see more than
+principles. Historical events are interesting to us mainly in connection
+with the feelings, the sufferings, and interests of those by whom they
+are accomplished. In history we are surrounded by men long dead, but
+whose speech and whose deeds survive. We almost catch the sound of their
+voices; and what they did constitutes the interest of history. We never
+feel personally interested in masses of men; but we feel and sympathise
+with the individual actors, whose biographies afford the finest and most
+real touches in all great historical dramas.
+
+Among the great writers of the past, probably the two that have been
+most influential in forming the characters of great men of action and
+great men of thought, have been Plutarch and Montaigne--the one by
+presenting heroic models for imitation, the other by probing questions
+of constant recurrence in which the human mind in all ages has taken the
+deepest interest. And the works of both are for the most part cast in
+a biographic form, their most striking illustrations consisting in the
+exhibitions of character and experience which they contain.
+
+Plutarch's 'Lives,' though written nearly eighteen hundred years ago,
+like Homer's 'Iliad,' still holds its ground as the greatest work of
+its kind. It was the favourite book of Montaigne; and to Englishmen it
+possesses the special interest of having been Shakspeare's principal
+authority in his great classical dramas. Montaigne pronounced Plutarch
+to be "the greatest master in that kind of writing"--the biographic;
+and he declared that he "could no sooner cast an eye upon him but he
+purloined either a leg or a wing."
+
+Alfieri was first drawn with passion to literature by reading Plutarch.
+"I read," said he, "the lives of Timoleon, Caesar, Brutus, Pelopidas,
+more than six times, with cries, with tears, and with such transports,
+that I was almost furious.... Every time that I met with one of the
+grand traits of these great men, I was seized with such vehement
+agitation as to be unable to sit still." Plutarch was also a favourite
+with persons of such various minds as Schiller and Benjamin Franklin,
+Napoleon and Madame Roland. The latter was so fascinated by the book
+that she carried it to church with her in the guise of a missal, and
+read it surreptitiously during the service.
+
+It has also been the nurture of heroic souls such as Henry IV. of
+France, Turenne, and the Napiers. It was one of Sir William Napier's
+favourite books when a boy. His mind was early imbued by it with
+a passionate admiration for the great heroes of antiquity; and
+its influence had, doubtless, much to do with the formation of his
+character, as well as the direction of his career in life. It is related
+of him, that in his last illness, when feeble and exhausted, his mind
+wandered back to Plutarch's heroes; and he descanted for hours to his
+son-in-law on the mighty deeds of Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar.
+Indeed, if it were possible to poll the great body of readers in all
+ages whose minds have been influenced and directed by books, it is
+probable that--excepting always the Bible--the immense majority of votes
+would be cast in favour of Plutarch.
+
+And how is it that Plutarch has succeeded in exciting an interest which
+continues to attract and rivet the attention of readers of all ages and
+classes to this day? In the first place, because the subject of his work
+is great men, who occupied a prominent place in the world's history, and
+because he had an eye to see and a pen to describe the more prominent
+events and circumstances in their lives. And not only so, but he
+possessed the power of portraying the individual character of his
+heroes; for it is the principle of individuality which gives the charm
+and interest to all biography. The most engaging side of great men is
+not so much what they do as what they are, and does not depend upon
+their power of intellect but on their personal attractiveness. Thus,
+there are men whose lives are far more eloquent than their speeches, and
+whose personal character is far greater than their deeds.
+
+It is also to be observed, that while the best and most carefully-drawn
+of Plutarch's portraits are of life-size, many of them are little more
+than busts. They are well-proportioned but compact, and within such
+reasonable compass that the best of them--such as the lives of Caesar
+and Alexander--may be read in half an hour. Reduced to this measure,
+they are, however, greatly more imposing than a lifeless Colossus, or
+an exaggerated giant. They are not overlaid by disquisition and
+description, but the characters naturally unfold themselves. Montaigne,
+indeed, complained of Plutarch's brevity. "No doubt," he added, "but
+his reputation is the better for it, though in the meantime we are the
+worse. Plutarch would rather we should applaud his judgment than commend
+his knowledge, and had rather leave us with an appetite to read more
+than glutted with what we have already read. He knew very well that a
+man may say too much even on the best subjects.... Such as have lean
+and spare bodies stuff themselves out with clothes; so they who are
+defective in matter, endeavour to make amends with words." [195]
+
+Plutarch possessed the art of delineating the more delicate features
+of mind and minute peculiarities of conduct, as well as the foibles
+and defects of his heroes, all of which is necessary to faithful and
+accurate portraiture. "To see him," says Montaigne, "pick out a light
+action in a man's life, or a word, that does not seem to be of any
+importance, is itself a whole discourse." He even condescends to
+inform us of such homely particulars as that Alexander carried his head
+affectedly on one side; that Alcibiades was a dandy, and had a lisp,
+which became him, giving a grace and persuasive turn to his discourse;
+that Cato had red hair and gray eyes, and was a usurer and a screw,
+selling off his old slaves when they became unfit for hard work; that
+Caesar was bald and fond of gay dress; and that Cicero [19like Lord
+Brougham] had involuntary twitchings of his nose.
+
+Such minute particulars may by some be thought beneath the dignity of
+biography, but Plutarch thought them requisite for the due finish of
+the complete portrait which he set himself to draw; and it is by
+small details of character--personal traits, features, habits, and
+characteristics--that we are enabled to see before us the men as they
+really lived. Plutarch's great merit consists in his attention to these
+little things, without giving them undue preponderance, or neglecting
+those which are of greater moment. Sometimes he hits off an individual
+trait by an anecdote, which throws more light upon the character
+described than pages of rhetorical description would do. In some cases,
+he gives us the favourite maxim of his hero; and the maxims of men often
+reveal their hearts.
+
+Then, as to foibles, the greatest of men are not visually symmetrical.
+Each has his defect, his twist, his craze; and it is by his faults that
+the great man reveals his common humanity. We may, at a distance, admire
+him as a demigod; but as we come nearer to him, we find that he is but a
+fallible man, and our brother. [196]
+
+Nor are the illustrations of the defects of great men without their
+uses; for, as Dr. Johnson observed, "If nothing but the bright side of
+characters were shown, we should sit down in despondency, and think it
+utterly impossible to imitate them in anything."
+
+Plutarch, himself justifies his method of portraiture by averring that
+his design was not to write histories, but lives. "The most glorious
+exploits," he says, "do not always furnish us with the clearest
+discoveries of virtue or of vice in men. Sometimes a matter of much less
+moment, an expression or a jest, better informs us of their characters
+and inclinations than battles with the slaughter of tens of thousands,
+and the greatest arrays of armies or sieges of cities. Therefore, as
+portrait-painters are more exact in their lines and features of the face
+and the expression of the eyes, in which the character is seen, without
+troubling themselves about the other parts of the body, so I must
+be allowed to give my more particular attention to the signs and
+indications of the souls of men; and while I endeavour by these means
+to portray their lives, I leave important events and great battles to be
+described by others."
+
+Things apparently trifling may stand for much in biography as well as
+history, and slight circumstances may influence great results. Pascal
+has remarked, that if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the whole face
+of the world would probably have been changed. But for the amours of
+Pepin the Fat, the Saracens might have overrun Europe; as it was his
+illegitimate son, Charles Martel, who overthrew them at Tours, and
+eventually drove them out of France.
+
+That Sir Walter Scott should have sprained his foot in running round
+the room when a child, may seem unworthy of notice in his biography; yet
+'Ivanhoe,' 'Old Mortality,' and all the Waverley novels depended upon
+it. When his son intimated a desire to enter the army, Scott wrote to
+Southey, "I have no title to combat a choice which would have been my
+own, had not my lameness prevented." So that, had not Scott been lame,
+he might have fought all through the Peninsular War, and had his breast
+covered with medals; but we should probably have had none of those works
+of his which have made his name immortal, and shed so much glory upon
+his country. Talleyrand also was kept out of the army, for which he had
+been destined, by his lameness; but directing his attention to the study
+of books, and eventually of men, he at length took rank amongst the
+greatest diplomatists of his time.
+
+Byron's clubfoot had probably not a little to do with determining his
+destiny as a poet. Had not his mind been embittered and made morbid by
+his deformity, he might never have written a line--he might have been
+the noblest fop of his day. But his misshapen foot stimulated his mind,
+roused his ardour, threw him upon his own resources--and we know with
+what result.
+
+So, too, of Scarron, to whose hunchback we probably owe his cynical
+verse; and of Pope, whose satire was in a measure the outcome of his
+deformity--for he was, as Johnson described him, "protuberant behind
+and before." What Lord Bacon said of deformity is doubtless, to a great
+extent, true. "Whoever," said he, "hath anything fixed in his person
+that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself to
+rescue and deliver himself from scorn; therefore, all deformed persons
+are extremely bold."
+
+As in portraiture, so in biography, there must be light and shade.
+The portrait-painter does not pose his sitter so as to bring out his
+deformities; nor does the biographer give undue prominence to the
+defects of the character he portrays. Not many men are so outspoken as
+Cromwell was when he sat to Cooper for his miniature: "Paint me as I
+am," said he, "warts and all." Yet, if we would have a faithful likeness
+of faces and characters, they must be painted as they are. "Biography,"
+said Sir Walter Scott, "the most interesting of every species of
+composition, loses all its interest with me when the shades and lights
+of the principal characters are not accurately and faithfully detailed.
+I can no more sympathise with a mere eulogist, than I can with a ranting
+hero on the stage." [197]
+
+Addison liked to know as much as possible about the person and character
+of his authors, inasmuch as it increased the pleasure and satisfaction
+which he derived from the perusal of their books. What was their
+history, their experience, their temper and disposition? Did their lives
+resemble their books? They thought nobly--did they act nobly? "Should we
+not delight," says Sir Egerton Brydges, "to have the frank story of the
+lives and feelings of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Campbell, Rogers,
+Moore, and Wilson, related by themselves?--with whom they lived early;
+how their bent took a decided course; their likes and dislikes; their
+difficulties and obstacles; their tastes, their passions; the rocks they
+were conscious of having split upon; their regrets, their complacencies,
+and their self-justifications?" [198]
+
+When Mason was reproached for publishing the private letters of Gray,
+he answered, "Would you always have my friends appear in full-dress?"
+Johnson was of opinion that to write a man's life truly, it is necessary
+that the biographer should have personally known him. But this condition
+has been wanting in some of the best writers of biographies extant. [199]
+In the case of Lord Campbell, his personal intimacy with Lords Lyndhurst
+and Brougham seems to have been a positive disadvantage, leading him
+to dwarf the excellences and to magnify the blots in their characters.
+Again, Johnson says: "If a man profess to write a life, he must write it
+really as it was. A man's peculiarities, and even his vices, should be
+mentioned, because they mark his character." But there is always
+this difficulty,--that while minute details of conduct, favourable or
+otherwise, can best be given from personal knowledge, they cannot always
+be published, out of regard for the living; and when the time arrives
+when they may at length be told, they are then no longer remembered.
+Johnson himself expressed this reluctance to tell all he knew of
+those poets who had been his contemporaries, saying that he felt as if
+"walking upon ashes under which the fire was not extinguished."
+
+For this reason, amongst others, we rarely obtain an unvarnished
+picture of character from the near relatives of distinguished men; and,
+interesting though all autobiography is, still less can we expect it
+from the men themselves. In writing his own memoirs, a man will not tell
+all that he knows about himself. Augustine was a rare exception, but
+few there are who will, as he did in his 'Confessions,' lay bare their
+innate viciousness, deceitfulness, and selfishness. There is a Highland
+proverb which says, that if the best man's faults were written on his
+forehead he would pull his bonnet over his brow. "There is no man," said
+Voltaire, "who has not something hateful in him--no man who has not some
+of the wild beast in him. But there are few who will honestly tell us
+how they manage their wild beast." Rousseau pretended to unbosom himself
+in his 'Confessions;' but it is manifest that he held back far more
+than he revealed. Even Chamfort, one of the last men to fear what his
+contemporaries might think or say of him, once observed:--"It seems to
+me impossible, in the actual state of society, for any man to exhibit
+his secret heart, the details of his character as known to himself, and,
+above all, his weaknesses and his vices, to even his best friend."
+
+An autobiography may be true so far as it goes; but in communicating
+only part of the truth, it may convey an impression that is really
+false. It may be a disguise--sometimes it is an apology--exhibiting
+not so much what a man really was, as what he would have liked to be. A
+portrait in profile may be correct, but who knows whether some scar on
+the off-cheek, or some squint in the eye that is not seen, might not
+have entirely altered the expression of the face if brought into sight?
+Scott, Moore, Southey, all began autobiographies, but the task of
+continuing them was doubtless felt to be too difficult as well as
+delicate, and they were abandoned.
+
+French literature is especially rich in a class of biographic memoirs,
+of which we have few counterparts in English. We refer to their MEMOIRES
+POUR SERVIR, such as those of Sully, De Comines, Lauzun, De Retz, De
+Thou, Rochefoucalt, &c., in which we have recorded an immense mass of
+minute and circumstantial information relative to many great personages
+of history. They are full of anecdotes illustrative of life and
+character, and of details which might be called frivolous, but that they
+throw a flood of light on the social habits and general civilisation
+of the periods to which they relate. The MEMOIRES of Saint-Simon are
+something more: they are marvellous dissections of character, and
+constitute the most extraordinary collection of anatomical biography
+that has ever been brought together.
+
+Saint-Simon might almost be regarded in the light of a posthumous
+court-spy of Louis the Fourteenth. He was possessed by a passion for
+reading character, and endeavouring to decipher motives and intentions
+in the faces, expressions, conversation, and byplay of those about him.
+"I examine all my personages closely," said he--"watch their mouth,
+eyes, and ears constantly." And what he heard and saw he noted down with
+extraordinary vividness and dash. Acute, keen, and observant, he pierced
+the masks of the courtiers, and detected their secrets. The ardour with
+which he prosecuted his favourite study of character seemed insatiable,
+and even cruel. "The eager anatomist," says Sainte-Beuve, "was not more
+ready to plunge the scalpel into the still-palpitating bosom in search
+of the disease that had baffled him."
+
+La Bruyere possessed the same gift of accurate and penetrating
+observation of character. He watched and studied everybody about him.
+He sought to read their secrets; and, retiring to his chamber, he
+deliberately painted their portraits, returning to them from time to
+time to correct some prominent feature--hanging over them as fondly as
+an artist over some favourite study--adding trait to trait, and touch
+to touch, until at length the picture was complete and the likeness
+perfect.
+
+It may be said that much of the interest of biography, especially of the
+more familiar sort, is of the nature of gossip; as that of the MEMOIRES
+POUR SERVIR is of the nature of scandal, which is no doubt true. But
+both gossip and scandal illustrate the strength of the interest which
+men and women take in each other's personality; and which, exhibited in
+the form of biography, is capable of communicating the highest pleasure,
+and yielding the best instruction. Indeed biography, because it is
+instinct of humanity, is the branch of literature which--whether in the
+form of fiction, of anecdotal recollection, or of personal narrative--is
+the one that invariably commends itself to by far the largest class of
+readers.
+
+There is no room for doubt that the surpassing interest which fiction,
+whether in poetry or prose, possesses for most minds, arises mainly
+from the biographic element which it contains. Homer's 'Iliad' owes its
+marvellous popularity to the genius which its author displayed in the
+portrayal of heroic character. Yet he does not so much describe his
+personages in detail as make them develope themselves by their actions.
+"There are in Homer," said Dr. Johnson, "such characters of heroes and
+combination of qualities of heroes, that the united powers of mankind
+ever since have not produced any but what are to be found there."
+
+The genius of Shakspeare also was displayed in the powerful delineation
+of character, and the dramatic evolution of human passions. His
+personages seem to be real--living and breathing before us. So too with
+Cervantes, whose Sancho Panza, though homely and vulgar, is intensely
+human. The characters in Le Sage's 'Gil Blas,' in Goldsmith's 'Vicar of
+Wakefield,' and in Scott's marvellous muster-roll, seem to us almost as
+real as persons whom we have actually known; and De Foe's greatest works
+are but so many biographies, painted in minute detail, with reality so
+apparently stamped upon every page, that it is difficult to believe his
+Robinson Crusoe and Colonel Jack to have been fictitious instead of real
+persons.
+
+Though the richest romance lies enclosed in actual human life, and
+though biography, because it describes beings who have actually felt the
+joys and sorrows, and experienced the difficulties and triumphs, of real
+life, is capable of being made more attractive, than the most perfect
+fictions ever woven, it is remarkable that so few men of genius have
+been attracted to the composition of works of this kind. Great works of
+fiction abound, but great biographies may be counted on the fingers. It
+may be for the same reason that a great painter of portraits, the
+late John Philip, R.A., explained his preference for subject-painting,
+because, said he, "Portrait-painting does not pay." Biographic
+portraiture involves laborious investigation and careful collection of
+facts, judicious rejection and skilful condensation, as well as the
+art of presenting the character portrayed in the most attractive and
+lifelike form; whereas, in the work of fiction, the writer's imagination
+is free to create and to portray character, without being trammelled by
+references, or held down by the actual details of real life.
+
+There is, indeed, no want among us of ponderous but lifeless memoirs,
+many of them little better than inventories, put together with the
+help of the scissors as much as of the pen. What Constable said of the
+portraits of an inferior artist--"He takes all the bones and brains out
+of his heads"--applies to a large class of portraiture, written as well
+as painted. They have no more life in them than a piece of waxwork, or a
+clothes-dummy at a tailor's door. What we want is a picture of a man as
+he lived, and lo! we have an exhibition of the biographer himself. We
+expect an embalmed heart, and we find only clothes.
+
+There is doubtless as high art displayed in painting a portrait in
+words, as there is in painting one in colours. To do either well
+requires the seeing eye and the skilful pen or brush. A common artist
+sees only the features of a face, and copies them; but the great artist
+sees the living soul shining through the features, and places it on
+the canvas. Johnson was once asked to assist the chaplain of a deceased
+bishop in writing a memoir of his lordship; but when he proceeded to
+inquire for information, the chaplain could scarcely tell him anything.
+Hence Johnson was led to observe that "few people who have lived with a
+man know what to remark about him."
+
+In the case of Johnson's own life, it was the seeing eye of Boswell that
+enabled him to note and treasure up those minute details of habit and
+conversation in which so much of the interest of biography consists.
+Boswell, because of his simple love and admiration of his hero,
+succeeded where probably greater men would have failed. He descended to
+apparently insignificant, but yet most characteristic, particulars. Thus
+he apologizes for informing the reader that Johnson, when journeying,
+"carried in his hand a large English oak-stick:" adding, "I remember Dr.
+Adam Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad
+to know that Milton wore latchets in his shoes instead of buckles."
+Boswell lets us know how Johnson looked, what dress he wore, what was
+his talk, what were his prejudices. He painted him with all his scars,
+and a wonderful portrait it is--perhaps the most complete picture of a
+great man ever limned in words.
+
+But for the accident of the Scotch advocate's intimacy with Johnson, and
+his devoted admiration of him, the latter would not probably have stood
+nearly so high in literature as he now does. It is in the pages of
+Boswell that Johnson really lives; and but for Boswell, he might have
+remained little more than a name. Others there are who have bequeathed
+great works to posterity, but of whose lives next to nothing is known.
+What would we not give to have a Boswell's account of Shakspeare? We
+positively know more of the personal history of Socrates, of Horace, of
+Cicero, of Augustine, than we do of that of Shakspeare. We do not
+know what was his religion, what were his politics, what were his
+experiences, what were his relations to his contemporaries. The men
+of his own time do not seem to have recognised his greatness; and Ben
+Jonson, the court poet, whose blank-verse Shakspeare was content
+to commit to memory and recite as an actor, stood higher in popular
+estimation. We only know that he was a successful theatrical manager,
+and that in the prime of life he retired to his native place, where he
+died, and had the honours of a village funeral. The greater part of the
+biography which has been constructed respecting him has been the result,
+not of contemporary observation or of record, but of inference. The best
+inner biography of the man is to be found in his sonnets.
+
+Men do not always take an accurate measure of their contemporaries. The
+statesman, the general, the monarch of to-day fills all eyes and ears,
+though to the next generation he may be as if he had never been. "And
+who is king to-day?" the painter Greuze would ask of his daughter,
+during the throes of the first French Revolution, when men, great for
+the time, were suddenly thrown to the surface, and as suddenly dropt out
+of sight again, never to reappear. "And who is king to-day? After all,"
+Greuze would add, "Citizen Homer and Citizen Raphael will outlive those
+great citizens of ours, whose names I have never before heard of."
+Yet of the personal history of Homer nothing is known, and of Raphael
+comparatively little. Even Plutarch, who wrote the lives of others: so
+well, has no biography, none of the eminent Roman writers who were
+his contemporaries having so much as mentioned his name. And so of
+Correggio, who delineated the features of others so well, there is not
+known to exist an authentic portrait.
+
+There have been men who greatly influenced the life of their time, whose
+reputation has been much greater with posterity than it was with their
+contemporaries. Of Wickliffe, the patriarch of the Reformation, our
+knowledge is extremely small. He was but as a voice crying in the
+wilderness. We do not really know who was the author of 'The Imitation
+of Christ'--a book that has had an immense circulation, and exercised
+a vast religious influence in all Christian countries. It is usually
+attributed to Thomas a Kempis but there is reason to believe that he was
+merely its translator, and the book that is really known to be his, [1910]
+is in all respects so inferior, that it is difficult to believe that
+'The Imitation' proceeded from the same pen. It is considered more
+probable that the real author was John Gerson, Chancellor of the
+University of Paris, a most learned and devout man, who died in 1429.
+
+Some of the greatest men of genius have had the shortest biographies. Of
+Plato, one of the great fathers of moral philosophy, we have no personal
+account. If he had wife and children, we hear nothing of them. About the
+life of Aristotle there is the greatest diversity of opinion. One says
+he was a Jew; another, that he only got his information from a Jew: one
+says he kept an apothecary's shop; another, that he was only the son of
+a physician: one alleges that he was an atheist; another, that he was a
+Trinitarian, and so forth. But we know almost as little with respect to
+many men of comparatively modern times. Thus, how little do we know of
+the lives of Spenser, author of 'The Faerie Queen,' and of Butler, the
+author of 'Hudibras,' beyond the fact that they lived in comparative
+obscurity, and died in extreme poverty! How little, comparatively, do
+we know of the life of Jeremy Taylor, the golden preacher, of whom we
+should like to have known so much!
+
+The author of 'Philip Van Artevelde' has said that "the world knows
+nothing of its greatest men." And doubtless oblivion has enwrapt in
+its folds many great men who have done great deeds, and been forgotten.
+Augustine speaks of Romanianus as the greatest genius that ever lived,
+and yet we know nothing of him but his name; he is as much forgotten
+as the builders of the Pyramids. Gordiani's epitaph was written in five
+languages, yet it sufficed not to rescue him from oblivion.
+
+Many, indeed, are the lives worthy of record that have remained
+unwritten. Men who have written books have been the most fortunate in
+this respect, because they possess an attraction for literary men which
+those whose lives have been embodied in deeds do not possess. Thus there
+have been lives written of Poets Laureate who were mere men of their
+time, and of their time only. Dr. Johnson includes some of them in his
+'Lives of the Poets,' such as Edmund Smith and others, whose poems
+are now no longer known. The lives of some men of letters--such as
+Goldsmith, Swift, Sterne, and Steele--have been written again and again,
+whilst great men of action, men of science, and men of industry, are
+left without a record. [1911]
+
+We have said that a man may be known by the company he keeps in his
+books. Let us mention a few of the favourites of the best-known men.
+Plutarch's admirers have already been referred to. Montaigne also has
+been the companion of most meditative men. Although Shakspeare must have
+studied Plutarch carefully, inasmuch as he copied from him freely, even
+to his very words, it is remarkable that Montaigne is the only book
+which we certainly know to have been in the poet's library; one of
+Shakspeare's existing autographs having been found in a copy of Florio's
+translation of 'The Essays,' which also contains, on the flyleaf, the
+autograph of Ben Jonson.
+
+Milton's favourite books were Homer, Ovid, and Euripides. The latter
+book was also the favourite of Charles James Fox, who regarded the study
+of it as especially useful to a public speaker. On the other hand, Pitt
+took especial delight in Milton--whom Fox did not appreciate--taking
+pleasure in reciting, from 'Paradise Lost,' the grand speech of Belial
+before the assembled powers of Pandemonium. Another of Pitt's favourite
+books was Newton's 'Principia.' Again, the Earl of Chatham's favourite
+book was 'Barrow's Sermons,' which he read so often as to be able to
+repeat them from memory; while Burke's companions were Demosthenes,
+Milton, Bolingbroke, and Young's 'Night Thoughts.'
+
+Curran's favourite was Homer, which he read through once a year. Virgil
+was another of his favourites; his biographer, Phillips, saying that
+he once saw him reading the 'Aeneid' in the cabin of a Holyhead packet,
+while every one about him was prostrate by seasickness.
+
+Of the poets, Dante's favourite was Virgil; Corneille's was Lucan;
+Schiller's was Shakspeare; Gray's was Spenser; whilst Coleridge admired
+Collins and Bowles. Dante himself was a favourite with most great poets,
+from Chaucer to Byron and Tennyson. Lord Brougham, Macaulay, and Carlyle
+have alike admired and eulogized the great Italian. The former advised
+the students at Glasgow that, next to Demosthenes, the study of Dante
+was the best preparative for the eloquence of the pulpit or the bar.
+Robert Hall sought relief in Dante from the racking pains of spinal
+disease; and Sydney Smith took to the same poet for comfort and solace
+in his old age. It was characteristic of Goethe that his favourite book
+should have been Spinoza's 'Ethics,' in which he said he had found a
+peace and consolation such as he had been able to find in no other work.
+[1912]
+
+Barrow's favourite was St. Chrysostom; Bossuet's was Homer. Bunyan's
+was the old legend of Sir Bevis of Southampton, which in all probability
+gave him the first idea of his 'Pilgrim's Progress.' One of the
+best prelates that ever sat on the English bench, Dr. John Sharp,
+said--"Shakspeare and the Bible have made me Archbishop of York." The
+two books which most impressed John Wesley when a young man, were 'The
+Imitation of Christ' and Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying.' Yet
+Wesley was accustomed to caution his young friends against overmuch
+reading. "Beware you be not swallowed up in books," he would say to
+them; "an ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge."
+
+Wesley's own Life has been a great favourite with many thoughtful
+readers. Coleridge says, in his preface to Southey's 'Life of Wesley,'
+that it was more often in his hands than any other in his ragged
+book-regiment. "To this work, and to the Life of Richard Baxter," he
+says, "I was used to resort whenever sickness and languor made me feel
+the want of an old friend of whose company I could never be tired. How
+many and many an hour of self-oblivion do I owe to this Life of Wesley;
+and how often have I argued with it, questioned, remonstrated, been
+peevish, and asked pardon; then again listened, and cried, 'Right!
+Excellent!' and in yet heavier hours entreated it, as it were, to
+continue talking to me; for that I heard and listened, and was soothed,
+though I could make no reply!" [1913]
+
+Soumet had only a very few hooks in his library, but they were of the
+best--Homer, Virgil, Dante, Camoens, Tasso, and Milton. De Quincey's
+favourite few were Donne, Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, South,
+Barrow, and Sir Thomas Browne. He described these writers as "a pleiad
+or constellation of seven golden stars, such as in their class no
+literature can match," and from whose works he would undertake "to build
+up an entire body of philosophy."
+
+Frederick the Great of Prussia manifested his strong French leanings
+in his choice of books; his principal favourites being Bayle, Rousseau,
+Voltaire, Rollin, Fleury, Malebranche, and one English author--Locke.
+His especial favourite was Bayle's Dictionary, which was the first book
+that laid hold of his mind; and he thought so highly of it, that he
+himself made an abridgment and translation of it into German, which was
+published. It was a saying of Frederick's, that "books make up no small
+part of true happiness." In his old age he said, "My latest passion will
+be for literature."
+
+It seems odd that Marshal Blucher's favourite book should have been
+Klopstock's 'Messiah,' and Napoleon Buonaparte's favourites, Ossian's
+'Poems' and the 'Sorrows of Werther.' But Napoleon's range of reading
+was very extensive. It included Homer, Virgil, Tasso; novels of all
+countries; histories of all times; mathematics, legislation, and
+theology. He detested what he called "the bombast and tinsel" of
+Voltaire. The praises of Homer and Ossian he was never wearied
+of sounding. "Read again," he said to an officer on board the
+BELLEROPHO--"read again the poet of Achilles; devour Ossian. Those are
+the poets who lift up the soul, and give to man a colossal greatness."
+[1914]
+
+The Duke of Wellington was an extensive reader; his principal favourites
+were Clarendon, Bishop Butler, Smith's 'Wealth of Nations,' Hume,
+the Archduke Charles, Leslie, and the Bible. He was also particularly
+interested by French and English memoirs--more especially the French
+MEMOIRES POUR SERVIR of all kinds. When at Walmer, Mr. Gleig says, the
+Bible, the Prayer Book, Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying,' and Caesar's
+'Commentaries,' lay within the Duke's reach; and, judging by the marks
+of use on them, they must have been much read and often consulted.
+
+While books are among the best companions of old age, they are often the
+best inspirers of youth. The first book that makes a deep impression on
+a young man's mind, often constitutes an epoch in his life. It may fire
+the heart, stimulate the enthusiasm, and by directing his efforts into
+unexpected channels, permanently influence his character. The new book,
+in which we form an intimacy with a new friend, whose mind is wiser and
+riper than our own, may thus form an important starting-point in the
+history of a life. It may sometimes almost be regarded in the light of a
+new birth.
+
+From the day when James Edward Smith was presented with his first
+botanical lesson-book, and Sir Joseph Banks fell in with Gerard's
+'Herbal'--from the time when Alfieri first read Plutarch, and Schiller
+made his first acquaintance with Shakspeare, and Gibbon devoured the
+first volume of 'The Universal History'--each dated an inspiration so
+exalted, that they felt as if their real lives had only then begun.
+
+In the earlier part of his youth, La Fontaine was distinguished for
+his idleness, but hearing an ode by Malherbe read, he is said to have
+exclaimed, "I too am a poet," and his genius was awakened. Charles
+Bossuet's mind was first fired to study by reading, at an early
+age, Fontenelle's 'Eloges' of men of science. Another work of
+Fontenelle's--'On the Plurality of Worlds'--influenced the mind of
+Lalande in making choice of a profession. "It is with pleasure," says
+Lalande himself in a preface to the book, which he afterwards edited,
+"that I acknowledge my obligation to it for that devouring activity
+which its perusal first excited in me at the age of sixteen, and which I
+have since retained."
+
+In like manner, Lacepede was directed to the study of natural history
+by the perusal of Buffon's 'Histoire Naturelle,' which he found in his
+father's library, and read over and over again until he almost knew it
+by heart. Goethe was greatly influenced by the reading of Goldsmith's
+'Vicar of Wakefield,' just at the critical moment of his mental
+development; and he attributed to it much of his best education. The
+reading of a prose 'Life of Gotz vou Berlichingen' afterwards stimulated
+him to delineate his character in a poetic form. "The figure of a rude,
+well-meaning self-helper," he said, "in a wild anarchic time, excited my
+deepest sympathy."
+
+Keats was an insatiable reader when a boy; but it was the perusal of the
+'Faerie Queen,' at the age of seventeen, that first lit the fire of his
+genius. The same poem is also said to have been the inspirer of Cowley,
+who found a copy of it accidentally lying on the window of his mother's
+apartment; and reading and admiring it, he became, as he relates,
+irrecoverably a poet.
+
+Coleridge speaks of the great influence which the poems of Bowles had in
+forming his own mind. The works of a past age, says he, seem to a young
+man to be things of another race; but the writings of a contemporary
+"possess a reality for him, and inspire an actual friendship as of a
+man for a man. His very admiration is the wind which fans and feeds his
+hope. The poems themselves assume the properties of flesh and blood."
+[1915]
+
+But men have not merely been stimulated to undertake special literary
+pursuits by the perusal of particular books; they have been also
+stimulated by them to enter upon particular lines of action in the
+serious business of life. Thus Henry Martyn was powerfully influenced
+to enter upon his heroic career as a missionary by perusing the Lives of
+Henry Brainerd and Dr. Carey, who had opened up the furrows in which he
+went forth to sow the seed.
+
+Bentham has described the extraordinary influence which the perusal of
+'Telemachus' exercised upon his mind in boyhood. "Another book," said
+he, "and of far higher character [19than a collection of Fairy Tales, to
+which he refers], was placed in my hands. It was 'Telemachus.' In my
+own imagination, and at the age of six or seven, I identified my own
+personality with that of the hero, who seemed to me a model of perfect
+virtue; and in my walk of life, whatever it may come to be, why [19said
+I to myself every now and then]--why should not I be a Telemachus?....
+That romance may be regarded as THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF MY WHOLE
+CHARACTER--the starting-post from whence my career of life commenced.
+The first dawning in my mind of the 'Principles of Utility' may, I
+think, be traced to it." [1916]
+
+Cobbett's first favourite, because his only book, which he bought for
+threepence, was Swift's 'Tale of a Tub,' the repeated perusal of
+which had, doubtless, much to do with the formation of his pithy,
+straightforward, and hard-hitting style of writing. The delight with
+which Pope, when a schoolboy, read Ogilvy's 'Homer' was, most probably,
+the origin of the English 'Iliad;' as the 'Percy Reliques' fired the
+juvenile mind of Scott, and stimulated him to enter upon the collection
+and composition of his 'Border Ballads.' Keightley's first reading of
+'Paradise Lost,' when a boy, led to his afterwards undertaking his Life
+of the poet. "The reading," he says, "of 'Paradise Lost' for the first
+time forms, or should form, an era in the life of every one possessed of
+taste and poetic feeling. To my mind, that time is ever present.... Ever
+since, the poetry of Milton has formed my constant study--a source of
+delight in prosperity, of strength and consolation in adversity."
+
+Good books are thus among the best of companions; and, by elevating
+the thoughts and aspirations, they act as preservatives against low
+associations. "A natural turn for reading and intellectual pursuits,"
+says Thomas Hood, "probably preserved me from the moral shipwreck so
+apt to befal those who are deprived in early life of their parental
+pilotage. My books kept me from the ring, the dogpit, the tavern, the
+saloon. The closet associate of Pope and Addison, the mind accustomed to
+the noble though silent discourse of Shakspeare and Milton, will hardly
+seek or put up with low company and slaves."
+
+It has been truly said, that the best books are those which most
+resemble good actions. They are purifying, elevating, and sustaining;
+they enlarge and liberalize the mind; they preserve it against vulgar
+worldliness; they tend to produce highminded cheerfulness and equanimity
+of character; they fashion, and shape, and humanize the mind. In the
+Northern universities, the schools in which the ancient classics are
+studied, are appropriately styled "The Humanity Classes." [1917]
+
+Erasmus, the great scholar, was even of opinion that books were the
+necessaries of life, and clothes the luxuries; and he frequently
+postponed buying the latter until he had supplied himself with the
+former. His greatest favourites were the works of Cicero, which he says
+he always felt himself the better for reading. "I can never," he
+says, "read the works of Cicero on 'Old Age,' or 'Friendship,' or his
+'Tusculan Disputations,' without fervently pressing them to my lips,
+without being penetrated with veneration for a mind little short of
+inspired by God himself." It was the accidental perusal of Cicero's
+'Hortensius' which first detached St. Augustine--until then a profligate
+and abandoned sensualist--from his immoral life, and started him upon
+the course of inquiry and study which led to his becoming the greatest
+among the Fathers of the Early Church. Sir William Jones made it a
+practice to read through, once a year, the writings of Cicero, "whose
+life indeed," says his biographer, "was the great exemplar of his own."
+
+When the good old Puritan Baxter came to enumerate the valuable and
+delightful things of which death would deprive him, his mind reverted
+to the pleasures he had derived from books and study. "When I die," he
+said, "I must depart, not only from sensual delights, but from the more
+manly pleasures of my studies, knowledge, and converse with many wise
+and godly men, and from all my pleasure in reading, hearing, public and
+private exercises of religion, and such like. I must leave my library,
+and turn over those pleasant books no more. I must no more come among
+the living, nor see the faces of my faithful friends, nor be seen of
+man; houses, and cities, and fields, and countries, gardens, and walks,
+will be as nothing to me. I shall no more hear of the affairs of the
+world, of man, or wars, or other news; nor see what becomes of that
+beloved interest of wisdom, piety, and peace, which I desire may
+prosper."
+
+It is unnecessary to speak of the enormous moral influence which books
+have exercised upon the general civilization of mankind, from the Bible
+downwards. They contain the treasured knowledge of the human race. They
+are the record of all labours, achievements, speculations, successes,
+and failures, in science, philosophy, religion, and morals. They have
+been the greatest motive powers in all times. "From the Gospel to
+the Contrat Social," says De Bonald, "it is books that have made
+revolutions." Indeed, a great book is often a greater thing than a great
+battle. Even works of fiction have occasionally exercised immense power
+on society. Thus Rabelais in France, and Cervantes in Spain, overturned
+at the same time the dominion of monkery and chivalry, employing no
+other weapons but ridicule, the natural contrast of human terror.
+The people laughed, and felt reassured. So 'Telemachus' appeared, and
+recalled men back to the harmonies of nature.
+
+"Poets," says Hazlitt, "are a longer-lived race than heroes: they
+breathe more of the air of immortality. They survive more entire in
+their thoughts and acts. We have all that Virgil or Homer did, as much
+as if we had lived at the same time with them. We can hold their works
+in our hands, or lay them on our pillows, or put them to our lips.
+Scarcely a trace of what the others did is left upon the earth, so as
+to be visible to common eyes. The one, the dead authors, are living men,
+still breathing and moving in their writings; the others, the conquerors
+of the world, are but the ashes in an urn. The sympathy [19so to speak]
+between thought and thought is more intimate and vital than that between
+thought and action. Thought is linked to thought as flame kindles into
+flame; the tribute of admiration to the MANES of departed heroism is
+like burning incense in a marble monument. Words, ideas, feelings, with
+the progress of time harden into substances: things, bodies, actions,
+moulder away, or melt into a sound--into thin air.... Not only a man's
+actions are effaced and vanish with him; his virtues and generous
+qualities die with him also. His intellect only is immortal, and
+bequeathed unimpaired to posterity. Words are the only things that last
+for ever." [1918]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.--COMPANIONSHIP IN MARRIAGE.
+
+
+
+          "Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
+          Shall win my love."--SHAKSPEARE.
+
+     "In the husband Wisdom, In the wife Gentleness."--GEORGE
+     HERBERT.
+
+     "If God had designed woman as man's master, He would have
+     taken her from his head; If as his slave, He would have
+     taken her from his feet; but as He designed her for his
+     companion and equal, He took her from his side."--SAINT
+     AUGUSTINE.--'DE CIVITATE DEI.'
+
+     "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above
+     rubies.... Her husband is known in the gates, and he sitteth
+     among the elders of the land.... Strength and honour are her
+     clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth
+     her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of
+     kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her husband, and
+     eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up and
+     call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her."--
+     PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.
+
+
+THE character of men, as of women, is powerfully influenced by their
+companionship in all the stages of life. We have already spoken of the
+influence of the mother in forming the character of her children. She
+makes the moral atmosphere in which they live, and by which their minds
+and souls are nourished, as their bodies are by the physical atmosphere
+they breathe. And while woman is the natural cherisher of infancy and
+the instructor of childhood, she is also the guide and counsellor
+of youth, and the confidant and companion of manhood, in her various
+relations of mother, sister, lover, and wife. In short, the influence of
+woman more or less affects, for good or for evil, the entire destinies
+of man.
+
+The respective social functions and duties of men and women are clearly
+defined by nature. God created man AND woman, each to do their proper
+work, each to fill their proper sphere. Neither can occupy the position,
+nor perform the functions, of the other. Their several vocations are
+perfectly distinct. Woman exists on her own account, as man does on
+his, at the same time that each has intimate relations with the
+other. Humanity needs both for the purposes of the race, and in every
+consideration of social progress both must necessarily be included.
+
+Though companions and equals, yet, as regards the measure of their
+powers, they are unequal. Man is stronger, more muscular, and of rougher
+fibre; woman is more delicate, sensitive, and nervous. The one excels in
+power of brain, the other in qualities of heart; and though the head may
+rule, it is the heart that influences. Both are alike adapted for the
+respective functions they have to perform in life; and to attempt to
+impose woman's work upon man would be quite as absurd as to attempt to
+impose man's work upon woman. Men are sometimes womanlike, and women are
+sometimes manlike; but these are only exceptions which prove the rule.
+
+Although man's qualities belong more to the head, and woman's more
+to the heart--yet it is not less necessary that man's heart should be
+cultivated as well as his head, and woman's head cultivated as well
+as her heart. A heartless man is as much out-of-keeping in civilized
+society as a stupid and unintelligent woman. The cultivation of all
+parts of the moral and intellectual nature is requisite to form the man
+or woman of healthy and well-balanced character. Without sympathy or
+consideration for others, man were a poor, stunted, sordid, selfish
+being; and without cultivated intelligence, the most beautiful woman
+were little better than a well-dressed doll.
+
+It used to be a favourite notion about woman, that her weakness and
+dependency upon others constituted her principal claim to admiration.
+"If we were to form an image of dignity in a man," said Sir Richard
+Steele, "we should give him wisdom and valour, as being essential to the
+character of manhood. In like manner, if you describe a right woman in
+a laudable sense, she should have gentle softness, tender fear, and all
+those parts of life which distinguish her from the other sex, with some
+subordination to it, but an inferiority which makes her lovely." Thus,
+her weakness was to be cultivated, rather than her strength; her
+folly, rather than her wisdom. She was to be a weak, fearful, tearful,
+characterless, inferior creature, with just sense enough to understand
+the soft nothings addressed to her by the "superior" sex. She was to
+be educated as an ornamental appanage of man, rather as an independent
+intelligence--or as a wife, mother, companion, or friend.
+
+Pope, in one of his 'Moral Essays,' asserts that "most women have no
+characters at all;" and again he says:--
+
+          "Ladies, like variegated tulips, show:
+          'Tis to their changes half their charms we owe,
+          Fine by defect and delicately weak."
+
+This satire characteristically occurs in the poet's 'Epistle to Martha
+Blount,' the housekeeper who so tyrannically ruled him; and in the same
+verses he spitefully girds at Lady Mary Wortley Montague, at whose feet
+he had thrown himself as a lover, and been contemptuously rejected.
+But Pope was no judge of women, nor was he even a very wise or tolerant
+judge of men.
+
+It is still too much the practice to cultivate the weakness of woman
+rather than her strength, and to render her attractive rather than
+self-reliant. Her sensibilities are developed at the expense of her
+health of body as well as of mind. She lives, moves, and has her being
+in the sympathy of others. She dresses that she may attract, and is
+burdened with accomplishments that she may be chosen. Weak, trembling,
+and dependent, she incurs the risk of becoming a living embodiment of
+the Italian proverb--"so good that she is good for nothing."
+
+On the other hand, the education of young men too often errs on the
+side of selfishness. While the boy is incited to trust mainly to his own
+efforts in pushing his way in the world, the girl is encouraged to rely
+almost entirely upon others. He is educated with too exclusive reference
+to himself and she is educated with too exclusive reference to him. He
+is taught to be self-reliant and self-dependent, while she is taught
+to be distrustful of herself, dependent, and self-sacrificing in all
+things. Thus, the intellect of the one is cultivated at the expense of
+the affections, and the affections of the other at the expense of the
+intellect.
+
+It is unquestionable that the highest qualities of woman are displayed
+in her relationship to others, through the medium of her affections. She
+is the nurse whom nature has given to all humankind. She takes charge
+of the helpless, and nourishes and cherishes those we love. She is the
+presiding genius of the fireside, where she creates an atmosphere
+of serenity and contentment suitable for the nurture and growth
+of character in its best forms. She is by her very constitution
+compassionate, gentle, patient, and self-denying. Loving, hopeful,
+trustful, her eye sheds brightness everywhere. It shines upon coldness
+and warms it, upon suffering and relieves it, upon sorrow and cheers
+it:--
+
+                          "Her silver flow
+          Of subtle-paced counsel in distress,
+        Right to the heart and brain, though undescried,
+          Winning its way with extreme gentleness
+        Through all the outworks of suspicion's pride."
+
+Woman has been styled "the angel of the unfortunate." She is ready to
+help the weak, to raise the fallen, to comfort the suffering. It was
+characteristic of woman, that she should have been the first to build
+and endow an hospital. It has been said that wherever a human being
+is in suffering, his sighs call a woman to his side. When Mungo Park,
+lonely, friendless, and famished, after being driven forth from an
+African village by the men, was preparing to spend the night under a
+tree, exposed to the rain and the wild beasts which there abounded,
+a poor negro woman, returning from the labours of the field, took
+compassion upon him, conducted him into her hut, and there gave him
+food, succour, and shelter. [201]
+
+But while the most characteristic qualities of woman are displayed
+through her sympathies and affections, it is also necessary for her own
+happiness, as a self-dependent being, to develope and strengthen her
+character, by due self-culture, self-reliance, and self-control. It is
+not desirable, even were it possible, to close the beautiful avenues
+of the heart. Self-reliance of the best kind does not involve any
+limitation in the range of human sympathy. But the happiness of woman,
+as of man, depends in a great measure upon her individual completeness
+of character. And that self-dependence which springs from the due
+cultivation of the intellectual powers, conjoined with a proper
+discipline of the heart and conscience, will enable her to be more
+useful in life as well as happy; to dispense blessings intelligently as
+well as to enjoy them; and most of all those which spring from mutual
+dependence and social sympathy.
+
+To maintain a high standard of purity in society, the culture of both
+sexes must be in harmony, and keep equal pace. A pure womanhood must be
+accompanied by a pure manhood. The same moral law applies alike to both.
+It would be loosening the foundations of virtue, to countenance the
+notion that because of a difference in sex, man were at liberty to set
+morality at defiance, and to do that with impunity, which, if done by
+a woman, would stain her character for life. To maintain a pure and
+virtuous condition of society, therefore, man as well as woman must be
+pure and virtuous; both alike shunning all acts impinging on the heart,
+character, and conscience--shunning them as poison, which, once imbibed,
+can never be entirely thrown out again, but mentally embitters, to a
+greater or less extent, the happiness of after-life.
+
+And here we would venture to touch upon a delicate topic. Though it is
+one of universal and engrossing human interest, the moralist avoids it,
+the educator shuns it, and parents taboo it. It is almost considered
+indelicate to refer to Love as between the sexes; and young persons are
+left to gather their only notions of it from the impossible love-stories
+that fill the shelves of circulating libraries. This strong and
+absorbing feeling, this BESOIN D'AIMER--which nature has for wise
+purposes made so strong in woman that it colours her whole life and
+history, though it may form but an episode in the life of man--is
+usually left to follow its own inclinations, and to grow up for the most
+part unchecked, without any guidance or direction whatever.
+
+Although nature spurns all formal rules and directions in affairs of
+love, it might at all events be possible to implant in young minds such
+views of Character as should enable them to discriminate between
+the true and the false, and to accustom them to hold in esteem those
+qualities of moral purity and integrity, without which life is but a
+scene of folly and misery. It may not be possible to teach young people
+to love wisely, but they may at least be guarded by parental advice
+against the frivolous and despicable passions which so often usurp its
+name. "Love," it has been said, "in the common acceptation of the term,
+is folly; but love, in its purity, its loftiness, its unselfishness,
+is not only a consequence, but a proof, of our moral excellence. The
+sensibility to moral beauty, the forgetfulness of self in the admiration
+engendered by it, all prove its claim to a high moral influence. It is
+the triumph of the unselfish over the selfish part of our nature."
+
+It is by means of this divine passion that the world is kept ever
+fresh and young. It is the perpetual melody of humanity. It sheds an
+effulgence upon youth, and throws a halo round age. It glorifies the
+present by the light it casts backward, and it lightens the future by
+the beams it casts forward. The love which is the outcome of esteem and
+admiration, has an elevating and purifying effect on the character.
+It tends to emancipate one from the slavery of self. It is altogether
+unsordid; itself is its only price. It inspires gentleness, sympathy,
+mutual faith, and confidence. True love also in a measure elevates the
+intellect. "All love renders wise in a degree," says the poet Browning,
+and the most gifted minds have been the sincerest lovers. Great
+souls make all affections great; they elevate and consecrate all true
+delights. The sentiment even brings to light qualities before lying
+dormant and unsuspected. It elevates the aspirations, expands the soul,
+and stimulates the mental powers. One of the finest compliments ever
+paid to a woman was that of Steele, when he said of Lady Elizabeth
+Hastings, "that to have loved her was a liberal education." Viewed in
+this light, woman is an educator in the highest sense, because, above
+all other educators, she educates humanly and lovingly.
+
+It has been said that no man and no woman can be regarded as complete in
+their experience of life, until they have been subdued into union with
+the world through their affections. As woman is not woman until she
+has known love, neither is man man. Both are requisite to each other's
+completeness. Plato entertained the idea that lovers each sought a
+likeness in the other, and that love was only the divorced half of
+the original human being entering into union with its counterpart. But
+philosophy would here seem to be at fault, for affection quite as often
+springs from unlikeness as from likeness in its object.
+
+The true union must needs be one of mind as well as of heart, and based
+on mutual esteem as well as mutual affection. "No true and enduring
+love," says Fichte, "can exist without esteem; every other draws regret
+after it, and is unworthy of any noble human soul." One cannot really
+love the bad, but always something that we esteem and respect as well as
+admire. In short, true union must rest on qualities of character, which
+rule in domestic as in public life.
+
+But there is something far more than mere respect and esteem in the
+union between man and wife. The feeling on which it rests is far deeper
+and tenderer--such, indeed, as never exists between men or between
+women. "In matters of affection," says Nathaniel Hawthorne, "there is
+always an impassable gulf between man and man. They can never quite
+grasp each other's hands, and therefore man never derives any intimate
+help, any heart-sustenance, from his brother man, but from woman--his
+mother, his sister, or his wife." [202]
+
+Man enters a new world of joy, and sympathy, and human interest, through
+the porch of love. He enters a new world in his home--the home of his
+own making--altogether different from the home of his boyhood, where
+each day brings with it a succession of new joys and experiences. He
+enters also, it may be, a new world of trials and sorrows, in which
+he often gathers his best culture and discipline. "Family life," says
+Sainte-Beuve, "may be full of thorns and cares; but they are fruitful:
+all others are dry thorns." And again: "If a man's home, at a certain
+period of life, does not contain children, it will probably be found
+filled with follies or with vices." [203]
+
+A life exclusively occupied in affairs of business insensibly tends
+to narrow and harden the character. It is mainly occupied with
+self-watching for advantages, and guarding against sharp practice on
+the part of others. Thus the character unconsciously tends to grow
+suspicious and ungenerous. The best corrective of such influences is
+always the domestic; by withdrawing the mind from thoughts that are
+wholly gainful, by taking it out of its daily rut, and bringing it back
+to the sanctuary of home for refreshment and rest:
+
+          "That truest, rarest light of social joy,
+          Which gleams upon the man of many cares."
+
+"Business," says Sir Henry Taylor, "does but lay waste the approaches to
+the heart, whilst marriage garrisons the fortress." And however the head
+may be occupied, by labours of ambition or of business--if the heart
+be not occupied by affection for others and sympathy with them--life,
+though it may appear to the outer world to be a success, will probably
+be no success at all, but a failure. [204]
+
+A man's real character will always be more visible in his household than
+anywhere else; and his practical wisdom will be better exhibited by the
+manner in which he bears rule there, than even in the larger affairs of
+business or public life. His whole mind may be in his business; but, if
+he would be happy, his whole heart must be in his home. It is there
+that his genuine qualities most surely display themselves--there that
+he shows his truthfulness, his love, his sympathy, his consideration
+for others, his uprightness, his manliness--in a word, his character. If
+affection be not the governing principle in a household, domestic life
+may be the most intolerable of despotisms. Without justice, also, there
+can be neither love, confidence, nor respect, on which all true domestic
+rule is founded.
+
+Erasmus speaks of Sir Thomas More's home as "a school and exercise of
+the Christian religion." "No wrangling, no angry word was heard in it;
+no one was idle; every one did his duty with alacrity, and not without
+a temperate cheerfulness." Sir Thomas won all hearts to obedience by his
+gentleness. He was a man clothed in household goodness; and he ruled so
+gently and wisely, that his home was pervaded by an atmosphere of love
+and duty. He himself spoke of the hourly interchange of the smaller acts
+of kindness with the several members of his family, as having a claim
+upon his time as strong as those other public occupations of his life
+which seemed to others so much more serious and important.
+
+But the man whose affections are quickened by home-life, does not
+confine his sympathies within that comparatively narrow sphere. His
+love enlarges in the family, and through the family it expands into the
+world. "Love," says Emerson, "is a fire that, kindling its first embers
+in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from a wandering spark out
+of another private heart, glows and enlarges until it warms and beams
+upon multitudes of men and women, upon the universal heart of all, and
+so lights up the whole world and nature with its generous flames."
+
+It is by the regimen of domestic affection that the heart of man is best
+composed and regulated. The home is the woman's kingdom, her state,
+her world--where she governs by affection, by kindness, by the power of
+gentleness. There is nothing which so settles the turbulence of a man's
+nature as his union in life with a highminded woman. There he finds
+rest, contentment, and happiness--rest of brain and peace of spirit.
+He will also often find in her his best counsellor, for her instinctive
+tact will usually lead him right when his own unaided reason might be
+apt to go wrong. The true wife is a staff to lean upon in times of trial
+and difficulty; and she is never wanting in sympathy and solace when
+distress occurs or fortune frowns. In the time of youth, she is a
+comfort and an ornament of man's life; and she remains a faithful
+helpmate in maturer years, when life has ceased to be an anticipation,
+and we live in its realities.
+
+What a happy man must Edmund Burke have been, when he could say of his
+home, "Every care vanishes the moment I enter under my own roof!" And
+Luther, a man full of human affection, speaking of his wife, said, "I
+would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus
+without her." Of marriage he observed: "The utmost blessing that God can
+confer on a man is the possession of a good and pious wife, with whom
+he may live in peace and tranquillity--to whom he may confide his whole
+possessions, even his life and welfare." And again he said, "To rise
+betimes, and to marry young, are what no man ever repents of doing."
+
+For a man to enjoy true repose and happiness in marriage, he must have
+in his wife a soul-mate as well as a helpmate. But it is not requisite
+that she should be merely a pale copy of himself. A man no more desires
+in his wife a manly woman, than the woman desires in her husband a
+feminine man. A woman's best qualities do not reside in her intellect,
+but in her affections. She gives refreshment by her sympathies, rather
+than by her knowledge. "The brain-women," says Oliver Wendell Holmes,
+"never interest us like the heart-women." [205] Men are often so wearied
+with themselves, that they are rather predisposed to admire qualities
+and tastes in others different from their own. "If I were suddenly
+asked," says Mr. Helps, "to give a proof of the goodness of God to us, I
+think I should say that it is most manifest in the exquisite difference
+He has made between the souls of men and women, so as to create the
+possibility of the most comforting and charming companionship that the
+mind of man can imagine." [206] But though no man may love a woman for her
+understanding, it is not the less necessary for her to cultivate it on
+that account. [207] There may be difference in character, but there must
+be harmony of mind and sentiment--two intelligent souls as well as two
+loving hearts:
+
+          "Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,
+          Two in the tangled business of the world,
+          Two in the liberal offices of life."
+
+There are few men who have written so wisely on the subject of marriage
+as Sir Henry Taylor. What he says about the influence of a happy union
+in its relation to successful statesmanship, applies to all conditions
+of life. The true wife, he says, should possess such qualities as will
+tend to make home as much as may be a place of repose. To this end, she
+should have sense enough or worth enough to exempt her husband as much
+as possible from the troubles of family management, and more especially
+from all possibility of debt. "She should be pleasing to his eyes and
+to his taste: the taste goes deep into the nature of all men--love is
+hardly apart from it; and in a life of care and excitement, that home
+which is not the seat of love cannot be a place of repose; rest for
+the brain, and peace for the spirit, being only to be had through the
+softening of the affections. He should look for a clear understanding,
+cheerfulness, and alacrity of mind, rather than gaiety and brilliancy,
+and for a gentle tenderness of disposition in preference to an
+impassioned nature. Lively talents are too stimulating in a tired man's
+house--passion is too disturbing....
+
+                         "Her love should be
+      A love that clings not, nor is exigent,
+      Encumbers not the active purposes,
+      Nor drains their source; but profers with free grace
+      Pleasure at pleasure touched, at pleasure waived,
+      A washing of the weary traveller's feet,
+      A quenching of his thirst, a sweet repose,
+      Alternate and preparative; in groves
+      Where, loving much the flower that loves the shade,
+      And loving much the shade that that flower loves,
+      He yet is unbewildered, unenslaved,
+      Thence starting light, and pleasantly let go
+      When serious service calls." [208]
+
+Some persons are disappointed in marriage, because they expect too
+much from it; but many more, because they do not bring into the
+co-partnership their fair share of cheerfulness, kindliness,
+forbearance, and common sense. Their imagination has perhaps pictured
+a condition never experienced on this side Heaven; and when real life
+comes, with its troubles and cares, there is a sudden waking-up as from
+a dream. Or they look for something approaching perfection in their
+chosen companion, and discover by experience that the fairest of
+characters have their weaknesses. Yet it is often the very imperfection
+of human nature, rather than its perfection, that makes the strongest
+claims on the forbearance and sympathy of others, and, in affectionate
+and sensible natures, tends to produce the closest unions.
+
+The golden rule of married life is, "Bear and forbear." Marriage, like
+government, is a series of compromises. One must give and take, refrain
+and restrain, endure and be patient. One may not be blind to another's
+failings, but they may be borne with good-natured forbearance. Of all
+qualities, good temper is the one that wears and works the best in
+married life. Conjoined with self-control, it gives patience--the
+patience to bear and forbear, to listen without retort, to refrain until
+the angry flash has passed. How true it is in marriage, that "the soft
+answer turneth away wrath!"
+
+Burns the poet, in speaking of the qualities of a good wife, divided
+them into ten parts. Four of these he gave to good temper, two to good
+sense, one to wit, one to beauty--such as a sweet face, eloquent eyes,
+a fine person, a graceful carriage; and the other two parts he divided
+amongst the other qualities belonging to or attending on a wife--such
+as fortune, connections, education [20that is, of a higher standard than
+ordinary], family blood, &c.; but he said: "Divide those two degrees
+as you please, only remember that all these minor proportions must
+be expressed by fractions, for there is not any one of them that is
+entitled to the dignity of an integer."
+
+It has been said that girls are very good at making nets, but that it
+would be better still if they would learn to make cages. Men are often
+as easily caught as birds, but as difficult to keep. If the wife cannot
+make her home bright and happy, so that it shall be the cleanest,
+sweetest, cheerfulest place that her husband can find refuge in--a
+retreat from the toils and troubles of the outer world--then God help
+the poor man, for he is virtually homeless!
+
+No wise person will marry for beauty mainly. It may exercise a powerful
+attraction in the first place, but it is found to be of comparatively
+little consequence afterwards. Not that beauty of person is to be
+underestimated, for, other things being equal, handsomeness of form
+and beauty of features are the outward manifestations of health. But to
+marry a handsome figure without character, fine features unbeautified
+by sentiment or good-nature, is the most deplorable of mistakes. As even
+the finest landscape, seen daily, becomes monotonous, so does the most
+beautiful face, unless a beautiful nature shines through it. The beauty
+of to-day becomes commonplace to-morrow; whereas goodness, displayed
+through the most ordinary features, is perennially lovely. Moreover,
+this kind of beauty improves with age, and time ripens rather than
+destroys it. After the first year, married people rarely think of
+each other's features, and whether they be classically beautiful or
+otherwise. But they never fail to be cognisant of each other's temper.
+"When I see a man," says Addison, "with a sour rivelled face, I cannot
+forbear pitying his wife; and when I meet with an open ingenuous
+countenance, I think of the happiness of his friends, his family, and
+his relations."
+
+We have given the views of the poet Burns as to the qualities necessary
+in a good wife. Let us add the advice given by Lord Burleigh to his son,
+embodying the experience of a wise statesman and practised man of the
+world. "When it shall please God," said he, "to bring thee to man's
+estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife;
+for from thence will spring all thy future good or evil. And it is an
+action of thy life, like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a man can err
+but once.... Enquire diligently of her disposition, and how her parents
+have been inclined in their youth. [209] Let her not be poor, how generous
+[20well-born] soever; for a man can buy nothing in the market with
+gentility. Nor choose a base and uncomely creature altogether for
+wealth; for it will cause contempt in others, and loathing in thee.
+Neither make choice of a dwarf, or a fool; for by the one thou shalt
+beget a race of pigmies, while the other will be thy continual disgrace,
+and it will yirke [20irk] thee to hear her talk. For thou shalt find it to
+thy great grief, that there is nothing more fulsome [20disgusting] than a
+she-fool."
+
+A man's moral character is, necessarily, powerfully influenced by his
+wife. A lower nature will drag him down, as a higher will lift him
+up. The former will deaden his sympathies, dissipate his energies, and
+distort his life; while the latter, by satisfying his affections, will
+strengthen his moral nature, and by giving him repose, tend to energise
+his intellect. Not only so, but a woman of high principles will
+insensibly elevate the aims and purposes of her husband, as one of
+low principles will unconsciously degrade them. De Tocqueville was
+profoundly impressed by this truth. He entertained the opinion that man
+could have no such mainstay in life as the companionship of a wife of
+good temper and high principle. He says that in the course of his life,
+he had seen even weak men display real public virtue, because they had
+by their side a woman of noble character, who sustained them in their
+career, and exercised a fortifying influence on their views of public
+duty; whilst, on the contrary, he had still oftener seen men of great
+and generous instincts transformed into vulgar self-seekers, by contact
+with women of narrow natures, devoted to an imbecile love of pleasure,
+and from whose minds the grand motive of Duty was altogether absent.
+
+De Tocqueville himself had the good fortune to be blessed with an
+admirable wife: [2010] and in his letters to his intimate friends, he
+spoke most gratefully of the comfort and support he derived from her
+sustaining courage, her equanimity of temper, and her nobility of
+character. The more, indeed, that De Tocqueville saw of the world and of
+practical life, the more convinced he became of the necessity of healthy
+domestic conditions for a man's growth in virtue and goodness. [2011]
+Especially did he regard marriage as of inestimable importance in regard
+to a man's true happiness; and he was accustomed to speak of his own
+as the wisest action of his life. "Many external circumstances of
+happiness," he said, "have been granted to me. But more than all, I have
+to thank Heaven for having bestowed on me true domestic happiness, the
+first of human blessings. As I grow older, the portion of my life which
+in my youth I used to look down upon, every day becomes more important
+in my eyes, and would now easily console me for the loss of all the
+rest." And again, writing to his bosom-friend, De Kergorlay, he said:
+"Of all the blessings which God has given to me, the greatest of all in
+my eyes is to have lighted on Marie. You cannot imagine what she is in
+great trials. Usually so gentle, she then becomes strong and energetic.
+She watches me without my knowing it; she softens, calms, and
+strengthens me in difficulties which disturb ME, but leave her serene."
+[2012] In another letter he says: "I cannot describe to you the happiness
+yielded in the long run by the habitual society of a woman in whose soul
+all that is good in your own is reflected naturally, and even improved.
+When I say or do a thing which seems to me to be perfectly right, I read
+immediately in Marie's countenance an expression of proud satisfaction
+which elevates me. And so, when my conscience reproaches me, her face
+instantly clouds over. Although I have great power over her mind, I see
+with pleasure that she awes me; and so long as I love her as I do now,
+I am sure that I shall never allow myself to be drawn into anything that
+is wrong."
+
+In the retired life which De Tocqueville led as a literary
+man--political life being closed against him by the inflexible
+independence of his character--his health failed, and he became ill,
+irritable, and querulous. While proceeding with his last work, 'L'Ancien
+Regime et la Revolution,' he wrote: "After sitting at my desk for five
+or six hours, I can write no longer; the machine refuses to act. I am in
+great want of rest, and of a long rest. If you add all the perplexities
+that besiege an author towards the end of his work, you will be able to
+imagine a very wretched life. I could not go on with my task if it
+were not for the refreshing calm of Marie's companionship. It would be
+impossible to find a disposition forming a happier contrast to my own.
+In my perpetual irritability of body and mind, she is a providential
+resource that never fails me." [2013]
+
+M. Guizot was, in like manner, sustained and encouraged, amidst his many
+vicissitudes and disappointments, by his noble wife. If he was treated
+with harshness by his political enemies, his consolation was in the
+tender affection which filled his home with sunshine. Though his public
+life was bracing and stimulating, he felt, nevertheless, that it was
+cold and calculating, and neither filled the soul nor elevated the
+character. "Man longs for a happiness," he says in his 'Memoires,' "more
+complete and more tender than that which all the labours and triumphs of
+active exertion and public importance can bestow. What I know to-day,
+at the end of my race, I have felt when it began, and during its
+continuance. Even in the midst of great undertakings, domestic
+affections form the basis of life; and the most brilliant career has
+only superficial and incomplete enjoyments, if a stranger to the happy
+ties of family and friendship."
+
+The circumstances connected with M. Guizot's courtship and marriage are
+curious and interesting. While a young man living by his pen in
+Paris, writing books, reviews, and translations, he formed a casual
+acquaintance with Mademoiselle Pauline de Meulan, a lady of great
+ability, then editor of the PUBLICISTE. A severe domestic calamity
+having befallen her, she fell ill, and was unable for a time to carry on
+the heavy literary work connected with her journal. At this juncture a
+letter without any signature reached her one day, offering a supply of
+articles, which the writer hoped would be worthy of the reputation of
+the PUBLICISTE. The articles duly arrived, were accepted, and
+published. They dealt with a great variety of subjects--art, literature,
+theatricals, and general criticism. When the editor at length recovered
+from her illness, the writer of the articles disclosed himself: it was
+M. Guizot. An intimacy sprang up between them, which ripened into mutual
+affection, and before long Mademoiselle de Meulan became his wife.
+
+From that time forward, she shared in all her husband's joys and
+sorrows, as well as in many of his labours. Before they became united,
+he asked her if she thought she should ever become dismayed at the
+vicissitudes of his destiny, which he then saw looming before him. She
+replied that he might assure himself that she would always passionately
+enjoy his triumphs, but never heave a sigh over his defeats. When M.
+Guizot became first minister of Louis Philippe, she wrote to a friend:
+"I now see my husband much less than I desire, but still I see him....
+If God spares us to each other, I shall always be, in the midst of every
+trial and apprehension, the happiest of beings." Little more than six
+months after these words were written, the devoted wife was laid in
+her grave; and her sorrowing husband was left thenceforth to tread the
+journey of life alone.
+
+Burke was especially happy in his union with Miss Nugent, a beautiful,
+affectionate, and highminded woman. The agitation and anxiety of his
+public life was more than compensated by his domestic happiness, which
+seems to have been complete. It was a saying of Burke, thoroughly
+illustrative of his character, that "to love the little platoon
+we belong to in society is the germ of all public affections." His
+description of his wife, in her youth, is probably one of the finest
+word-portraits in the language:--
+
+"She is handsome; but it is a beauty not arising from features, from
+complexion, or from shape. She has all three in a high degree, but it is
+not by these she touches the heart; it is all that sweetness of temper,
+benevolence, innocence, and sensibility, which a face can express, that
+forms her beauty. She has a face that just raises your attention at
+first sight; it grows on you every moment, and you wonder it did no more
+than raise your attention at first.
+
+"Her eyes have a mild light, but they awe when she pleases; they
+command, like a good man out of office, not by authority, but by virtue.
+
+"Her stature is not tall; she is not made to be the admiration of
+everybody, but the happiness of one.
+
+"She has all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy; she has all
+the softness that does not imply weakness.
+
+"Her voice is a soft low music--not formed to rule in public assemblies,
+but to charm those who can distinguish a company from a crowd; it has
+this advantage--YOU MUST COME CLOSE TO HER TO HEAR IT.
+
+"To describe her body describes her mind--one is the transcript of
+the other; her understanding is not shown in the variety of matters it
+exerts itself on, but in the goodness of the choice she makes.
+
+"She does not display it so much in saying or doing striking things, as
+in avoiding such as she ought not to say or do.
+
+"No person of so few years can know the world better; no person was ever
+less corrupted by the knowledge of it.
+
+"Her politeness flows rather from a natural disposition to oblige, than
+from any rules on that subject, and therefore never fails to strike
+those who understand good breeding and those who do not.
+
+"She has a steady and firm mind, which takes no more from the solidity
+of the female character than the solidity of marble does from its polish
+and lustre. She has such virtues as make us value the truly great of
+our own sex. She has all the winning graces that make us love even the
+faults we see in the weak and beautiful, in hers."
+
+Let us give, as a companion picture, the not less beautiful delineation
+of a husband, that of Colonel Hutchinson, the Commonwealth man, by his
+widow. Shortly before his death, he enjoined her "not to grieve at the
+common rate of desolate women." And, faithful to his injunction, instead
+of lamenting his loss, she indulged her noble sorrow in depicting her
+husband as he had lived.
+
+"They who dote on mortal excellences," she says, in her Introduction
+to the 'Life,' "when, by the inevitable fate of all things frail, their
+adored idols are taken from them, may let loose the winds of passion
+to bring in a flood of sorrow, whose ebbing tides carry away the dear
+memory of what they have lost; and when comfort is essayed to such
+mourners, commonly all objects are removed out of their view which
+may with their remembrance renew the grief; and in time these remedies
+succeed, and oblivion's curtain is by degrees drawn over the dead face;
+and things less lovely are liked, while they are not viewed together
+with that which was most excellent. But I, that am under a command not
+to grieve at the common rate of desolate women, [2014] while I am studying
+which way to moderate my woe, and if it were possible to augment my
+love, I can for the present find out none more just to your dear father,
+nor consolatory to myself, than the preservation of his memory, which I
+need not gild with such flattering commendations as hired preachers do
+equally give to the truly and titularly honourable. A naked undressed
+narrative, speaking the simple truth of him, will deck him with more
+substantial glory, than all the panegyrics the best pens could ever
+consecrate to the virtues of the best men."
+
+The following is the wife's portrait of Colonel Hutchinson as a
+husband:--
+
+"For conjugal affection to his wife, it was such in him as whosoever
+would draw out a rule of honour, kindness, and religion, to be practised
+in that estate, need no more but exactly draw out his example. Never
+man had a greater passion for a woman, nor a more honourable esteem of
+a wife: yet he was not uxorious, nor remitted he that just rule which
+it was her honour to obey, but managed the reins of government with
+such prudence and affection, that she who could not delight in such an
+honourable and advantageable subjection, must have wanted a reasonable
+soul.
+
+"He governed by persuasion, which he never employed but to things
+honourable and profitable to herself; he loved her soul and her honour
+more than her outside, and yet he had ever for her person a constant
+indulgence, exceeding the common temporary passion of the most uxorious
+fools. If he esteemed her at a higher rate than she in herself could
+have deserved, he was the author of that virtue he doated on, while
+she only reflected his own glories upon him. All that she was, was HIM,
+while he was here, and all that she is now, at best, is but his pale
+shade.
+
+"So liberal was he to her, and of so generous a temper, that he hated
+the mention of severed purses, his estate being so much at her disposal
+that he never would receive an account of anything she expended. So
+constant was he in his love, that when she ceased to be young and lovely
+he began to show most fondness. He loved her at such a kind and generous
+rate as words cannot express. Yet even this, which was the highest love
+he or any man could have, was bounded by a superior: he loved her in
+the Lord as his fellow-creature, not his idol; but in such a manner as
+showed that an affection, founded on the just rules of duty, far exceeds
+every way all the irregular passions in the world. He loved God above
+her, and all the other dear pledges of his heart, and for his glory
+cheerfully resigned them." [2015]
+
+Lady Rachel Russell is another of the women of history celebrated for
+her devotion and faithfulness as a wife. She laboured and pleaded for
+her husband's release so long as she could do so with honour; but when
+she saw that all was in vain, she collected her courage, and strove by
+her example to strengthen the resolution of her dear lord. And when his
+last hour had nearly come, and his wife and children waited to receive
+his parting embrace, she, brave to the end, that she might not add
+to his distress, concealed the agony of her grief under a seeming
+composure; and they parted, after a tender adieu, in silence. After she
+had gone, Lord William said, "Now the bitterness of death is passed!"
+[2016]
+
+We have spoken of the influence of a wife upon a man's character. There
+are few men strong enough to resist the influence of a lower character
+in a wife. If she do not sustain and elevate what is highest in his
+nature, she will speedily reduce him to her own level. Thus a wife may
+be the making or the unmaking of the best of men. An illustration of
+this power is furnished in the life of Bunyan. The profligate tinker had
+the good fortune to marry, in early life, a worthy young woman of good
+parentage. "My mercy," he himself says, "was to light upon a wife whose
+father and mother were accounted godly. This woman and I, though we came
+together as poor as poor might be [20not having so much household stuff as
+a dish or a spoon betwixt us both], yet she had for her part, 'The Plain
+Man's Pathway to Heaven,' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father
+had left her when he died." And by reading these and other good books;
+helped by the kindly influence of his wife, Bunyan was gradually
+reclaimed from his evil ways, and led gently into the paths of peace.
+
+Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine, was far advanced in life
+before he met the excellent woman who eventually became his wife. He was
+too laboriously occupied in his vocation of minister to have any time to
+spare for courtship; and his marriage was, as in the case of Calvin, as
+much a matter of convenience as of love. Miss Charlton, the lady of his
+choice, was the owner of property in her own right; but lest it should
+be thought that Baxter married her for "covetousness," he requested,
+first, that she should give over to her relatives the principal part of
+her fortune, and that "he should have nothing that before her marriage
+was hers;" secondly, that she should so arrange her affairs "as that
+he might be entangled in no lawsuits;" and, thirdly, "that she should
+expect none of the time that his ministerial work might require." These
+several conditions the bride having complied with, the marriage took
+place, and proved a happy one. "We lived," said Baxter, "in inviolated
+love and mutual complacency, sensible of the benefit of mutual help,
+nearly nineteen years." Yet the life of Baxter was one of great trials
+and troubles, arising from the unsettled state of the times in which he
+lived. He was hunted about from one part of the country to another,
+and for several years he had no settled dwelling-place. "The women," he
+gently remarks in his 'Life,' "have most of that sort of trouble, but my
+wife easily bore it all." In the sixth year of his marriage Baxter was
+brought before the magistrates at Brentford, for holding a conventicle
+at Acton, and was sentenced by them to be imprisoned in Clerkenwell
+Gaol. There he was joined by his wife, who affectionately nursed him
+during his confinement. "She was never so cheerful a companion to me,"
+he says, "as in prison, and was very much against me seeking to be
+released." At length he was set at liberty by the judges of the Court
+of Common Pleas, to whom he had appealed against the sentence of the
+magistrates. At the death of Mrs. Baxter, after a very troubled yet
+happy and cheerful life, her husband left a touching portrait of the
+graces, virtues, and Christian character of this excellent woman--one of
+the most charming things to be found in his works.
+
+The noble Count Zinzendorf was united to an equally noble woman, who
+bore him up through life by her great spirit, and sustained him in all
+his labours by her unfailing courage. "Twenty-four years' experience has
+shown me," he said, "that just the helpmate whom I have is the only one
+that could suit my vocation. Who else could have so carried through my
+family affairs?--who lived so spotlessly before the world? Who so wisely
+aided me in my rejection of a dry morality?.... Who would, like she,
+without a murmur, have seen her husband encounter such dangers by land
+and sea?--who undertaken with him, and sustained, such astonishing
+pilgrimages? Who, amid such difficulties, could have held up her head
+and supported me?.... And finally, who, of all human beings, could so
+well understand and interpret to others my inner and outer being as this
+one, of such nobleness in her way of thinking, such great intellectual
+capacity, and free from the theological perplexities that so often
+enveloped me?"
+
+One of the brave Dr. Livingstone's greatest trials during his travels in
+South Africa was the death of his affectionate wife, who had shared
+his dangers, and accompanied him in so many of his wanderings. In
+communicating the intelligence of her decease at Shupanga, on the River
+Zambesi, to his friend Sir Roderick Murchison, Dr. Livingstone said:
+"I must confess that this heavy stroke quite takes the heart out of
+me. Everything else that has happened only made me more determined to
+overcome all difficulties; but after this sad stroke I feel crushed and
+void of strength. Only three short months of her society, after four
+years separation! I married her for love, and the longer I lived with
+her I loved her the more. A good wife, and a good, brave, kindhearted
+mother was she, deserving all the praises you bestowed upon her at our
+parting dinner, for teaching her own and the native children, too, at
+Kolobeng. I try to bow to the blow as from our Heavenly Father, who
+orders all things for us.... I shall do my duty still, but it is with a
+darkened horizon that I again set about it."
+
+Sir Samuel Romilly left behind him, in his Autobiography, a touching
+picture of his wife, to whom he attributed no small measure of the
+success and happiness that accompanied him through life. "For the last
+fifteen years," he said, "my happiness has been the constant study of
+the most excellent of wives: a woman in whom a strong understanding, the
+noblest and most elevated sentiments, and the most courageous virtue,
+are united to the warmest affection, and to the utmost delicacy of mind
+and heart; and all these intellectual perfections are graced by the most
+splendid beauty that human eyes ever beheld." [2017] Romilly's affection
+and admiration for this noble woman endured to the end; and when she
+died, the shock proved greater than his sensitive nature could bear.
+Sleep left his eyelids, his mind became unhinged, and three days after
+her death the sad event occurred which brought his own valued life to a
+close. [2018]
+
+Sir Francis Burdett, to whom Romilly had been often politically opposed,
+fell into such a state of profound melancholy on the death of his wife,
+that he persistently refused nourishment of any kind, and died before
+the removal of her remains from the house; and husband and wife were
+laid side by side in the same grave.
+
+It was grief for the loss of his wife that sent Sir Thomas Graham into
+the army at the age of forty-three. Every one knows the picture of the
+newly-wedded pair by Gainsborough--one of the most exquisite of that
+painter's works. They lived happily together for eighteen years, and
+then she died, leaving him inconsolable. To forget his sorrow--and,
+as some thought, to get rid of the weariness of his life without
+her--Graham joined Lord Hood as a volunteer, and distinguished himself
+by the recklessness of his bravery at the siege of Toulon. He served all
+through the Peninsular War, first under Sir John Moore, and afterwards
+under Wellington; rising through the various grades of the service,
+until he rose to be second in command. He was commonly known as the
+"hero of Barossa," because of his famous victory at that place; and he
+was eventually raised to the peerage as Lord Lynedoch, ending his days
+peacefully at a very advanced age. But to the last he tenderly cherished
+the memory of his dead wife, to the love of whom he may be said to have
+owed all his glory. "Never," said Sheridan of him, when pronouncing his
+eulogy in the House of Commons--"never was there seated a loftier spirit
+in a braver heart."
+
+And so have noble wives cherished the memory of their husbands. There
+is a celebrated monument in Vienna, erected to the memory of one of the
+best generals of the Austrian army, on which there is an inscription,
+setting forth his great services during the Seven Years' War, concluding
+with the words, "NON PATRIA, NEC IMPERATOR, SED CONJUX POSUIT." When Sir
+Albert Morton died, his wife's grief was such that she shortly followed
+him, and was laid by his side. Wotton's two lines on the event have been
+celebrated as containing a volume in seventeen words:
+
+          "He first deceased; she for a little tried
+          To live without him, liked it not, and died."
+
+So, when Washington's wife was informed that her dear lord had suffered
+his last agony--had drawn his last breath, and departed--she said: "'Tis
+well; all is now over. I shall soon follow him; I have no more trials to
+pass through."
+
+Not only have women been the best companions, friends, and consolers,
+but they have in many cases been the most effective helpers of their
+husbands in their special lines of work. Galvani was especially happy in
+his wife. She was the daughter of Professor Galeazzi; and it is said to
+have been through her quick observation of the circumstance of the leg
+of a frog, placed near an electrical machine, becoming convulsed when
+touched by a knife, that her husband was first led to investigate the
+science which has since become identified with his name. Lavoisier's
+wife also was a woman of real scientific ability, who not only shared
+in her husband's pursuits, but even undertook the task of engraving the
+plates that accompanied his 'Elements.'
+
+The late Dr. Buckland had another true helper in his wife, who assisted
+him with her pen, prepared and mended his fossils, and furnished many of
+the drawings and illustrations of his published works. "Notwithstanding
+her devotion to her husband's pursuits," says her son, Frank Buckland,
+in the preface to one of his father's works, "she did not neglect the
+education of her children, but occupied her mornings in superintending
+their instruction in sound and useful knowledge. The sterling value of
+her labours they now, in after-life, fully appreciate, and feel most
+thankful that they were blessed with so good a mother." [2019]
+
+A still more remarkable instance of helpfulness in a wife is presented
+in the case of Huber, the Geneva naturalist. Huber was blind from his
+seventeenth year, and yet he found means to study and master a branch
+of natural history demanding the closest observation and the keenest
+eyesight. It was through the eyes of his wife that his mind worked as if
+they had been his own. She encouraged her husband's studies as a means
+of alleviating his privation, which at length he came to forget; and his
+life was as prolonged and happy as is usual with most naturalists. He
+even went so far as to declare that he should be miserable were he to
+regain his eyesight. "I should not know," he said, "to what extent
+a person in my situation could be beloved; besides, to me my wife is
+always young, fresh, and pretty, which is no light matter." Huber's
+great work on 'Bees' is still regarded as a masterpiece, embodying a
+vast amount of original observation on their habits and natural history.
+Indeed, while reading his descriptions, one would suppose that they were
+the work of a singularly keensighted man, rather than of one who had
+been entirely blind for twenty-five years at the time at which he wrote
+them.
+
+Not less touching was the devotion of Lady Hamilton to the service
+of her husband, the late Sir William Hamilton, Professor of Logic and
+Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. After he had been stricken
+by paralysis through overwork at the age of fifty-six, she became hands,
+eyes, mind, and everything to him. She identified herself with his work,
+read and consulted books for him, copied out and corrected his lectures,
+and relieved him of all business which she felt herself competent to
+undertake. Indeed, her conduct as a wife was nothing short of heroic;
+and it is probable that but for her devoted and more than wifely help,
+and her rare practical ability, the greatest of her husband's works
+would never have seen the light. He was by nature unmethodical and
+disorderly, and she supplied him with method and orderliness. His
+temperament was studious but indolent, while she was active and
+energetic. She abounded in the qualities which he most lacked. He had
+the genius, to which her vigorous nature gave the force and impulse.
+
+When Sir William Hamilton was elected to his Professorship, after a
+severe and even bitter contest, his opponents, professing to regard him
+as a visionary, predicted that he could never teach a class of students,
+and that his appointment would prove a total failure. He determined,
+with the help of his wife, to justify the choice of his supporters,
+and to prove that his enemies were false prophets. Having no stock of
+lectures on hand, each lecture of the first course was written out day
+by day, as it was to be delivered on the following morning. His wife sat
+up with him night after night, to write out a fair copy of the lectures
+from the rough sheets, which he drafted in the adjoining room. "On some
+occasions," says his biographer, "the subject of the lectures would
+prove less easily managed than on others; and then Sir William would be
+found writing as late as nine o'clock in the morning, while his faithful
+but wearied amanuensis had fallen asleep on a sofa." [2020]
+
+Sometimes the finishing touches to the lecture were left to be given
+just before the class-hour. Thus helped, Sir William completed his
+course; his reputation as a lecturer was established; and he eventually
+became recognised throughout Europe as one of the leading intellects of
+his time. [2021]
+
+The woman who soothes anxiety by her presence, who charms and allays
+irritability by her sweetness of temper, is a consoler as well as a true
+helper. Niebuhr always spoke of his wife as a fellow-worker with him
+in this sense. Without the peace and consolation which be found in her
+society, his nature would have fretted in comparative uselessness. "Her
+sweetness of temper and her love," said he, "raise me above the earth,
+and in a manner separate me from this life." But she was a helper in
+another and more direct way. Niebuhr was accustomed to discuss with his
+wife every historical discovery, every political event, every novelty in
+literature; and it was mainly for her pleasure and approbation, in
+the first instance, that he laboured while preparing himself for the
+instruction of the world at large.
+
+The wife of John Stuart Mill was another worthy helper of her husband,
+though in a more abstruse department of study, as we learn from his
+touching dedication of the treatise 'On Liberty':--"To the beloved and
+deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in part the author,
+of all that is best in my writings--the friend and wife, whose exalted
+sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and whose
+approbation was my chief reward, I dedicate this volume." Not less
+touching is the testimony borne by another great living writer to the
+character of his wife, in the inscription upon the tombstone of Mrs.
+Carlyle in Haddington Churchyard, where are inscribed these words:--"In
+her bright existence, she had more sorrows than are common, but also
+a soft amiability, a capacity of discernment, and a noble loyalty of
+heart, which are rare. For forty years she was the true and loving
+helpmate of her husband, and by act and word unweariedly forwarded him
+as none else could, in all of worthy that he did or attempted."
+
+The married life of Faraday was eminently happy. In his wife he found,
+at the same time, a true helpmate and soul-mate. She supported, cheered,
+and strengthened him on his way through life, giving him "the clear
+contentment of a heart at ease." In his diary he speaks of his marriage
+as "a source of honour and happiness far exceeding all the rest." After
+twentyeight years' experience, he spoke of it as "an event which, more
+than any other, had contributed to his earthly happiness and healthy
+state of mind.... The union [20said he] has in nowise changed, except only
+in the depth and strength of its character." And for six-and-forty years
+did the union continue unbroken; the love of the old man remaining
+as fresh, as earnest, as heart-whole, as in the days of his impetuous
+youth. In this case, marriage was as--
+
+"A golden chain let down from heaven, Whose links are bright and even;
+That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines The soft and sweetest
+minds In equal knots."
+
+Besides being a helper, woman is emphatically a consoler. Her sympathy
+is unfailing. She soothes, cheers, and comforts. Never was this more
+true than in the case of the wife of Tom Hood, whose tender devotion
+to him, during a life that was a prolonged illness, is one of the most
+affecting things in biography. A woman of excellent good sense, she
+appreciated her husband's genius, and, by encouragement and sympathy,
+cheered and heartened him to renewed effort in many a weary struggle for
+life. She created about him an atmosphere of hope and cheerfulness, and
+nowhere did the sunshine of her love seem so bright as when lighting up
+the couch of her invalid husband.
+
+Nor was he unconscious of her worth. In one of his letters to her, when
+absent from his side, Hood said: "I never was anything, Dearest, till
+I knew you; and I have been a better, happier, and more prosperous man
+ever since. Lay by that truth in lavender, Sweetest, and remind me of it
+when I fail. I am writing warmly and fondly, but not without good
+cause. First, your own affectionate letter, lately received; next, the
+remembrance of our dear children, pledges--what darling ones!--of
+our old familiar love; then, a delicious impulse to pour out the
+overflowings of my heart into yours; and last, not least, the knowledge
+that your dear eyes will read what my hand is now writing. Perhaps there
+is an afterthought that, whatever may befall me, the wife of my bosom
+will have the acknowledgment of her tenderness, worth, excellence--all
+that is wifely or womanly, from my pen." In another letter, also written
+to his wife during a brief absence, there is a natural touch, showing
+his deep affection for her: "I went and retraced our walk in the park,
+and sat down on the same seat, and felt happier and better."
+
+But not only was Mrs. Hood a consoler, she was also a helper of her
+husband in his special work. He had such confidence in her judgment,
+that he read, and re-read, and corrected with her assistance all that
+he wrote. Many of his pieces were first dedicated to her; and her ready
+memory often supplied him with the necessary references and quotations.
+Thus, in the roll of noble wives of men of genius, Mrs. Hood will always
+be entitled to take a foremost place.
+
+Not less effective as a literary helper was Lady Napier, the wife of Sir
+William Napier, historian of the Peninsular War. She encouraged him to
+undertake the work, and without her help he would have experienced great
+difficulty in completing it. She translated and epitomized the immense
+mass of original documents, many of them in cipher, on which it was in
+a great measure founded. When the Duke of Wellington was told of the art
+and industry she had displayed in deciphering King Joseph's portfolio,
+and the immense mass of correspondence taken at Vittoria, he at first
+would hardly believe it, adding--"I would have given 20,000L. to any
+person who could have done this for me in the Peninsula." Sir William
+Napier's handwriting being almost illegible, Lady Napier made out his
+rough interlined manuscript, which he himself could scarcely read, and
+wrote out a full fair copy for the printer; and all this vast labour she
+undertook and accomplished, according to the testimony of her husband,
+without having for a moment neglected the care and education of a large
+family. When Sir William lay on his deathbed, Lady Napier was at the
+same time dangerously ill; but she was wheeled into his room on a sofa,
+and the two took their silent farewell of each other. The husband died
+first; in a few weeks the wife followed him, and they sleep side by side
+in the same grave.
+
+Many other similar truehearted wives rise up in the memory, to recite
+whose praises would more than fill up our remaining space--such as
+Flaxman's wife, Ann Denham, who cheered and encouraged her husband
+through life in the prosecution of his art, accompanying him to Rome,
+sharing in his labours and anxieties, and finally in his triumphs, and
+to whom Flaxman, in the fortieth year of their married life, dedicated
+his beautiful designs illustrative of Faith, Hope, and Charity, in
+token of his deep and undimmed affection;--such as Katherine Boutcher,
+"dark-eyed Kate," the wife of William Blake, who believed her husband to
+be the first genius on earth, worked off the impressions of his plates
+and coloured them beautifully with her own hand, bore with him in all
+his erratic ways, sympathised with him in his sorrows and joys for
+forty-five years, and comforted him until his dying hour--his last
+sketch, made in his seventy-first year, being a likeness of himself,
+before making which, seeing his wife crying by his side, he said, "Stay,
+Kate! just keep as you are; I will draw your portrait, for you have ever
+been an angel to me;"--such again as Lady Franklin, the true and noble
+woman, who never rested in her endeavours to penetrate the secret of the
+Polar Sea and prosecute the search for her long-lost husband--undaunted
+by failure, and persevering in her determination with a devotion and
+singleness of purpose altogether unparalleled;--or such again as the
+wife of Zimmermann, whose intense melancholy she strove in vain to
+assuage, sympathizing with him, listening to him, and endeavouring to
+understand him--and to whom, when on her deathbed, about to leave him
+for ever, she addressed the touching words, "My poor Zimmermann! who
+will now understand thee?"
+
+Wives have actively helped their husbands in other ways. Before
+Weinsberg surrendered to its besiegers, the women of the place asked
+permission of the captors to remove their valuables. The permission was
+granted, and shortly after, the women were seen issuing from the gates
+carrying their husbands on their shoulders. Lord Nithsdale owed his
+escape from prison to the address of his wife, who changed garments with
+him, sending him forth in her stead, and herself remaining prisoner,--an
+example which was successfully repeated by Madame de Lavalette.
+
+But the most remarkable instance of the release of a husband through the
+devotion of a wife, was that of the celebrated Grotius. He had lain for
+nearly twenty months in the strong fortress of Loevestein, near Gorcum,
+having been condemned by the government of the United Provinces to
+perpetual imprisonment. His wife, having been allowed to share his cell,
+greatly relieved his solitude. She was permitted to go into the town
+twice a week, and bring her husband books, of which he required a large
+number to enable him to prosecute his studies. At length a large chest
+was required to hold them. This the sentries at first examined with
+great strictness, but, finding that it only contained books [20amongst
+others Arminian books] and linen, they at length gave up the search,
+and it was allowed to pass out and in as a matter of course. This led
+Grotius' wife to conceive the idea of releasing him; and she persuaded
+him one day to deposit himself in the chest instead of the outgoing
+books. When the two soldiers appointed to remove it took it up, they
+felt it to be considerably heavier than usual, and one of them asked,
+jestingly, "Have we got the Arminian himself here?" to which the
+ready-witted wife replied, "Yes, perhaps some Arminian books." The chest
+reached Gorcum in safety; the captive was released; and Grotius escaped
+across the frontier into Brabant, and afterwards into France, where he
+was rejoined by his wife.
+
+Trial and suffering are the tests of married life. They bring out the
+real character, and often tend to produce the closest union. They may
+even be the spring of the purest happiness. Uninterrupted joy, like
+uninterrupted success, is not good for either man or woman. When Heine's
+wife died, he began to reflect upon the loss he had sustained. They had
+both known poverty, and struggled through it hand-in-hand; and it was
+his greatest sorrow that she was taken from him at the moment when
+fortune was beginning to smile upon him, but too late for her to share
+in his prosperity. "Alas I" said he, "amongst my griefs must I reckon
+even her love--the strongest, truest, that ever inspired the heart
+of woman--which made me the happiest of mortals, and yet was to me a
+fountain of a thousand distresses, inquietudes, and cares? To entire
+cheerfulness, perhaps, she never attained; but for what unspeakable
+sweetness, what exalted, enrapturing joys, is not love indebted to
+sorrow! Amidst growing anxieties, with the torture of anguish in my
+heart, I have been made, even by the loss which caused me this anguish
+and these anxieties, inexpressibly happy! When tears flowed over our
+cheeks, did not a nameless, seldom-felt delight stream through my
+breast, oppressed equally by joy and sorrow!"
+
+There is a degree of sentiment in German love which seems strange to
+English readers,--such as we find depicted in the lives of Novalis, Jung
+Stilling, Fichte, Jean Paul, and others that might be named. The German
+betrothal is a ceremony of almost equal importance to the marriage
+itself; and in that state the sentiments are allowed free play, whilst
+English lovers are restrained, shy, and as if ashamed of their feelings.
+Take, for instance, the case of Herder, whom his future wife first saw
+in the pulpit. "I heard," she says, "the voice of an angel, and soul's
+words such as I had never heard before. In the afternoon I saw him,
+and stammered out my thanks to him; from this time forth our souls were
+one." They were betrothed long before their means would permit them to
+marry; but at length they were united. "We were married," says Caroline,
+the wife, "by the rose-light of a beautiful evening. We were one heart,
+one soul." Herder was equally ecstatic in his language. "I have a
+wife," he wrote to Jacobi, "that is the tree, the consolation, and the
+happiness of my life. Even in flying transient thoughts [20which often
+surprise us], we are one!"
+
+Take, again, the case of Fichte, in whose history his courtship and
+marriage form a beautiful episode. He was a poor German student, living
+with a family at Zurich in the capacity of tutor, when he first made the
+acquaintance of Johanna Maria Hahn, a niece of Klopstock. Her position
+in life was higher than that of Fichte; nevertheless, she regarded him
+with sincere admiration. When Fichte was about to leave Zurich, his
+troth plighted to her, she, knowing him to be very poor, offered him
+a gift of money before setting out. He was inexpressibly hurt by the
+offer, and, at first, even doubted whether she could really love him;
+but, on second thoughts, he wrote to her, expressing his deep thanks,
+but, at the same time, the impossibility of his accepting such a gift
+from her. He succeeded in reaching his destination, though entirely
+destitute of means. After a long and hard struggle with the world,
+extending over many years, Fichte was at length earning money enough to
+enable him to marry. In one of his charming letters to his betrothed
+he said:--"And so, dearest, I solemnly devote myself to thee, and thank
+thee that thou hast thought me not unworthy to be thy companion on the
+journey of life.... There is no land of happiness here below--I know it
+now--but a land of toil, where every joy but strengthens us for greater
+labour. Hand-in-hand we shall traverse it, and encourage and strengthen
+each other, until our spirits--oh, may it be together!--shall rise to
+the eternal fountain of all peace."
+
+The married life of Fichte was very happy. His wife proved a true and
+highminded helpmate. During the War of Liberation she was assiduous
+in her attention to the wounded in the hospitals, where she caught a
+malignant fever, which nearly carried her off. Fichte himself caught the
+same disease, and was for a time completely prostrated; but he lived for
+a few more years and died at the early age of fifty-two, consumed by his
+own fire.
+
+What a contrast does the courtship and married life of the blunt and
+practical William Cobbett present to the aesthetical and sentimental
+love of these highly refined Germans! Not less honest, not less true,
+but, as some would think, comparatively coarse and vulgar. When he first
+set eyes upon the girl that was afterwards to become his wife, she was
+only thirteen years old, and he was twenty-one--a sergeant-major in a
+foot regiment stationed at St. John's in New Brunswick. He was passing
+the door of her father's house one day in winter, and saw the girl
+out in the snow, scrubbing a washing-tub. He said at once to himself,
+"That's the girl for me." He made her acquaintance, and resolved that
+she should be his wife so soon as he could get discharged from the army.
+
+On the eve of the girl's return to Woolwich with her father, who was a
+sergeant-major in the artillery, Cobbett sent her a hundred and fifty
+guineas which he had saved, in order that she might be able to live
+without hard work until his return to England. The girl departed, taking
+with her the money; and five years later Cobbett obtained his discharge.
+On reaching London, he made haste to call upon the sergeant-major's
+daughter. "I found," he says, "my little girl a servant-of-all-work
+[20and hard work it was], at five pounds a year, in the house of a Captain
+Brisac; and, without hardly saying a word about the matter, she put
+into my hands the whole of my hundred and fifty guineas, unbroken."
+Admiration of her conduct was now added to love of her person, and
+Cobbett shortly after married the girl, who proved an excellent wife. He
+was, indeed, never tired of speaking her praises, and it was his pride
+to attribute to her all the comfort and much of the success of his
+after-life.
+
+Though Cobbett was regarded by many in his lifetime as a coarse, hard,
+practical man, full of prejudices, there was yet a strong undercurrent
+of poetry in his nature; and, while he declaimed against sentiment,
+there were few men more thoroughly imbued with sentiment of the best
+kind. He had the tenderest regard for the character of woman. He
+respected her purity and her virtue, and in his 'Advice to Young
+Men,' he has painted the true womanly woman--the helpful, cheerful,
+affectionate wife--with a vividness and brightness, and, at the same
+time, a force of good sense, that has never been surpassed by any
+English writer. Cobbett was anything but refined, in the conventional
+sense of the word; but he was pure, temperate, self-denying,
+industrious, vigorous, and energetic, in an eminent degree. Many of his
+views were, no doubt, wrong, but they were his own, for he insisted on
+thinking for himself in everything. Though few men took a firmer grasp
+of the real than he did, perhaps still fewer were more swayed by the
+ideal. In word-pictures of his own emotions, he is unsurpassed. Indeed,
+Cobbett might almost be regarded as one of the greatest prose poets of
+English real life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII--THE DISCIPLINE OF EXPERIENCE.
+
+
+
+      "I would the great would grow like thee.
+        Who grewest not alone in power
+        And knowledge, but by year and hour
+      In reverence and in charity."--TENNYSON.
+
+      "Not to be unhappy is unhappynesse,
+      And misery not t'have known miserie;
+      For the best way unto discretion is
+      The way that leades us by adversitie;
+      And men are better shew'd what is amisse,
+      By th'expert finger of calamitie,
+      Than they can be with all that fortune brings,
+      Who never shewes them the true face of things."--DANIEL.
+
+      "A lump of wo affliction is,
+      Yet thence I borrow lumps of bliss;
+      Though few can see a blessing in't,
+      It is my furnace and my mint."
+             --ERSKINE'S GOSPEL SONNETS.
+
+    "Crosses grow anchors, bear as thou shouldst so
+    Thy cross, and that cross grows an anchor too."--DONNE.
+
+        "Be the day weary, or be the day long,
+        At length it ringeth to Evensong."--ANCIENT COUPLET.
+
+
+Practical wisdom is only to be learnt in the school of experience.
+Precepts and instructions are useful so far as they go, but, without the
+discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only. The
+hard facts of existence have to be faced, to give that touch of truth to
+character which can never be imparted by reading or tuition, but only by
+contact with the broad instincts of common men and women.
+
+To be worth anything, character must be capable of standing firm upon
+its feet in the world of daily work, temptation, and trial; and able to
+bear the wear-and-tear of actual life. Cloistered virtues do not count
+for much. The life that rejoices in solitude may be only rejoicing in
+selfishness. Seclusion may indicate contempt for others; though more
+usually it means indolence, cowardice, or self-indulgence. To every
+human being belongs his fair share of manful toil and human duty; and it
+cannot be shirked without loss to the individual himself, as well as
+to the community to which he belongs. It is only by mixing in the
+daily life of the world, and taking part in its affairs, that practical
+knowledge can be acquired, and wisdom learnt. It is there that we find
+our chief sphere of duty, that we learn the discipline of work, and that
+we educate ourselves in that patience, diligence, and endurance
+which shape and consolidate the character. There we encounter the
+difficulties, trials, and temptations which, according as we deal with
+them, give a colour to our entire after-life; and there, too, we become
+subject to the great discipline of suffering, from which we learn far
+more than from the safe seclusion of the study or the cloister.
+
+Contact with others is also requisite to enable a man to know himself.
+It is only by mixing freely in the world that one can form a proper
+estimate of his own capacity. Without such experience, one is apt to
+become conceited, puffed-up, and arrogant; at all events, he will remain
+ignorant of himself, though he may heretofore have enjoyed no other
+company.
+
+Swift once said: "It is an uncontroverted truth, that no man ever made
+an ill-figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who
+mistook them." Many persons, however, are readier to take measure of the
+capacity of others than of themselves. "Bring him to me," said a certain
+Dr. Tronchin, of Geneva, speaking of Rousseau--"Bring him to me, that I
+may see whether he has got anything in him!"--the probability being that
+Rousseau, who knew himself better, was much more likely to take measure
+of Tronchin than Tronchin was to take measure of him.
+
+A due amount of self-knowledge is, therefore, necessary for those who
+would BE anything or DO anything in the world. It is also one of the
+first essentials to the formation of distinct personal convictions.
+Frederic Perthes once said to a young friend: "You know only too well
+what you CAN do; but till you have learned what you CANNOT do, you will
+neither accomplish anything of moment, nor know inward peace."
+
+Any one who would profit by experience will never be above asking for
+help. He who thinks himself already too wise to learn of others, will
+never succeed in doing anything either good or great. We have to keep
+our minds and hearts open, and never be ashamed to learn, with the
+assistance of those who are wiser and more experienced than ourselves.
+
+The man made wise by experience endeavours to judge correctly of the
+thugs which come under his observation, and form the subject of his
+daily life. What we call common sense is, for the most part, but the
+result of common experience wisely improved. Nor is great ability
+necessary to acquire it, so much as patience, accuracy, and
+watchfulness. Hazlitt thought the most sensible people to be met with
+are intelligent men of business and of the world, who argue from what
+they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what
+things ought to be.
+
+For the same reason, women often display more good sense than men,
+having fewer pretensions, and judging of things naturally, by the
+involuntary impression they make on the mind. Their intuitive powers are
+quicker, their perceptions more acute, their sympathies more lively, and
+their manners more adaptive to particular ends. Hence their greater tact
+as displayed in the management of others, women of apparently slender
+intellectual powers often contriving to control and regulate the
+conduct of men of even the most impracticable nature. Pope paid a high
+compliment to the tact and good sense of Mary, Queen of William III.,
+when he described her as possessing, not a science, but [21what was worth
+all else] prudence.
+
+The whole of life may be regarded as a great school of experience, in
+which men and women are the pupils. As in a school, many of the lessons
+learnt there must needs be taken on trust. We may not understand them,
+and may possibly think it hard that we have to learn them, especially
+where the teachers are trials, sorrows, temptations, and difficulties;
+and yet we must not only accept their lessons, but recognise them as
+being divinely appointed.
+
+To what extent have the pupils profited by their experience in the
+school of life? What advantage have they taken of their opportunities
+for learning? What have they gained in discipline of heart and
+mind?--how much in growth of wisdom, courage, self-control? Have
+they preserved their integrity amidst prosperity, and enjoyed life in
+temperance and moderation? Or, has life been with them a mere feast of
+selfishness, without care or thought for others? What have they learnt
+from trial and adversity? Have they learnt patience, submission,
+and trust in God?--or have they learnt nothing but impatience,
+querulousness, and discontent?
+
+The results of experience are, of course, only to be achieved by living;
+and living is a question of time. The man of experience learns to rely
+upon Time as his helper. "Time and I against any two," was a maxim
+of Cardinal Mazarin. Time has been described as a beautifier and as a
+consoler; but it is also a teacher. It is the food of experience, the
+soil of wisdom. It may be the friend or the enemy of youth; and Time
+will sit beside the old as a consoler or as a tormentor, according as it
+has been used or misused, and the past life has been well or ill spent.
+
+"Time," says George Herbert, "is the rider that breaks youth." To
+the young, how bright the new world looks!--how full of novelty, of
+enjoyment, of pleasure! But as years pass, we find the world to be a
+place of sorrow as well as of joy. As we proceed through life, many dark
+vistas open upon us--of toil, suffering, difficulty, perhaps misfortune
+and failure. Happy they who can pass through and amidst such trials with
+a firm mind and pure heart, encountering trials with cheerfulness, and
+standing erect beneath even the heaviest burden!
+
+A little youthful ardour is a great help in life, and is useful as an
+energetic motive power. It is gradually cooled down by Time, no matter
+how glowing it has been, while it is trained and subdued by experience.
+But it is a healthy and hopeful indication of character,--to be
+encouraged in a right direction, and not to be sneered down and
+repressed. It is a sign of a vigorous unselfish nature, as egotism is
+of a narrow and selfish one; and to begin life with egotism and
+self-sufficiency is fatal to all breadth and vigour of character. Life,
+in such a case, would be like a year in which there was no spring.
+Without a generous seedtime, there will be an unflowering summer and an
+unproductive harvest. And youth is the springtime of life, in which, if
+there be not a fair share of enthusiasm, little will be attempted,
+and still less done. It also considerably helps the working quality,
+inspiring confidence and hope, and carrying one through the dry details
+of business and duty with cheerfulness and joy.
+
+"It is the due admixture of romance and reality," said Sir Henry
+Lawrence, "that best carries a man through life... The quality of
+romance or enthusiasm is to be valued as an energy imparted to the human
+mind to prompt and sustain its noblest efforts." Sir Henry always urged
+upon young men, not that they should repress enthusiasm, but sedulously
+cultivate and direct the feeling, as one implanted for wise and noble
+purposes. "When the two faculties of romance and reality," he said, "are
+duly blended, reality pursues a straight rough path to a desirable and
+practicable result; while romance beguiles the road by pointing out its
+beauties--by bestowing a deep and practical conviction that, even in
+this dark and material existence, there may be found a joy with which a
+stranger intermeddleth not--a light that shineth more and more unto the
+perfect day." [211]
+
+It was characteristic of Joseph Lancaster, when a boy of only fourteen
+years of age, after reading 'Clarkson on the Slave Trade,' to form the
+resolution of leaving his home and going out to the West Indies to teach
+the poor blacks to read the Bible. And he actually set out with a Bible
+and 'Pilgrim's Progress' in his bundle, and only a few shillings in his
+purse. He even succeeded in reaching the West Indies, doubtless very
+much at a loss how to set about his proposed work; but in the meantime
+his distressed parents, having discovered whither he had gone, had him
+speedily brought back, yet with his enthusiasm unabated; and from that
+time forward he unceasingly devoted himself to the truly philanthropic
+work of educating the destitute poor. [212]
+
+There needs all the force that enthusiasm can give to enable a man to
+succeed in any great enterprise of life. Without it, the obstruction
+and difficulty he has to encounter on every side might compel him to
+succumb; but with courage and perseverance, inspired by enthusiasm,
+a man feels strong enough to face any danger, to grapple with any
+difficulty. What an enthusiasm was that of Columbus, who, believing in
+the existence of a new world, braved the dangers of unknown seas; and
+when those about him despaired and rose up against him, threatening to
+cast him into the sea, still stood firm upon his hope and courage until
+the great new world at length rose upon the horizon!
+
+The brave man will not be baffled, but tries and tries again until
+he succeeds. The tree does not fall at the first stroke, but only by
+repeated strokes and after great labour. We may see the visible success
+at which a man has arrived, but forget the toil and suffering and peril
+through which it has been achieved. When a friend of Marshal Lefevre was
+complimenting him on his possessions and good fortune, the Marshal said:
+"You envy me, do you? Well, you shall have these things at a better
+bargain than I had. Come into the court: I'll fire at you with a gun
+twenty times at thirty paces, and if I don't kill you, all shall be your
+own. What! you won't! Very well; recollect, then, that I have been shot
+at more than a thousand times, and much nearer, before I arrived at the
+state in which you now find me!"
+
+The apprenticeship of difficulty is one which the greatest of men
+have had to serve. It is usually the best stimulus and discipline of
+character. It often evokes powers of action that, but for it, would
+have remained dormant. As comets are sometimes revealed by eclipses,
+so heroes are brought to light by sudden calamity. It seems as if, in
+certain cases, genius, like iron struck by the flint, needed the sharp
+and sudden blow of adversity to bring out the divine spark. There are
+natures which blossom and ripen amidst trials, which would only wither
+and decay in an atmosphere of ease and comfort.
+
+Thus it is good for men to be roused into action and stiffened into
+self-reliance by difficulty, rather than to slumber away their lives
+in useless apathy and indolence. [213] It is the struggle that is the
+condition of victory. If there were no difficulties, there would be
+no need of efforts; if there were no temptations, there would be no
+training in self-control, and but little merit in virtue; if there were
+no trial and suffering, there would be no education in patience and
+resignation. Thus difficulty, adversity, and suffering are not all evil,
+but often the best source of strength, discipline, and virtue.
+
+For the same reason, it is often of advantage for a man to be under the
+necessity of having to struggle with poverty and conquer it. "He who has
+battled," says Carlyle, "were it only with poverty and hard toil, will
+be found stronger and more expert than he who could stay at home
+from the battle, concealed among the provision waggons, or even rest
+unwatchfully 'abiding by the stuff.'"
+
+Scholars have found poverty tolerable compared with the privation of
+intellectual food. Riches weigh much more heavily upon the mind. "I
+cannot but choose say to Poverty," said Richter, "Be welcome! so that
+thou come not too late in life." Poverty, Horace tells us, drove him
+to poetry, and poetry introduced him to Varus and Virgil and Maecenas.
+"Obstacles," says Michelet, "are great incentives. I lived for whole
+years upon a Virgil, and found myself well off. An odd volume of Racine,
+purchased by chance at a stall on the quay, created the poet of Toulon."
+
+The Spaniards are even said to have meanly rejoiced the poverty of
+Cervantes, but for which they supposed the production of his great works
+might have been prevented. When the Archbishop of Toledo visited the
+French ambassador at Madrid, the gentlemen in the suite of the latter
+expressed their high admiration of the writings of the author of 'Don
+Quixote,' and intimated their desire of becoming acquainted with one
+who had given them so much pleasure. The answer they received was, that
+Cervantes had borne arms in the service of his country, and was now
+old and poor. "What!" exclaimed one of the Frenchmen, "is not Senor
+Cervantes in good circumstances? Why is he not maintained, then, out
+of the public treasury?" "Heaven forbid!" was the reply, "that his
+necessities should be ever relieved, if it is those which make him
+write; since it is his poverty that makes the world rich!" [214]
+
+It is not prosperity so much as adversity, not wealth so much as
+poverty, that stimulates the perseverance of strong and healthy natures,
+rouses their energy and developes their character. Burke said of
+himself: "I was not rocked, and swaddled, and dandled into a legislator.
+'NITOR IN ADVERSUM' is the motto for a man like you." Some men only
+require a great difficulty set in their way to exhibit the force of
+their character and genius; and that difficulty once conquered becomes
+one of the greatest incentives to their further progress.
+
+It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much
+oftener succeed through failure. By far the best experience of men
+is made up of their remembered failures in dealing with others in
+the affairs of life. Such failures, in sensible men, incite to better
+self-management, and greater tact and self-control, as a means of
+avoiding them in the future. Ask the diplomatist, and he will tell you
+that he has learned his art through being baffled, defeated, thwarted,
+and circumvented, far more than from having succeeded. Precept, study,
+advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has
+done. It has disciplined them experimentally, and taught them what to
+do as well as what NOT to do--which is often still more important in
+diplomacy.
+
+Many have to make up their minds to encounter failure again and again
+before they succeed; but if they have pluck, the failure will only serve
+to rouse their courage, and stimulate them to renewed efforts. Talma,
+the greatest of actors, was hissed off the stage when he first appeared
+on it. Lacordaire, one of the greatest preachers of modern times, only
+acquired celebrity after repeated failures. Montalembert said of
+his first public appearance in the Church of St. Roch: "He failed
+completely, and on coming out every one said, 'Though he may be a man of
+talent, he will never be a preacher.'" Again and again he tried until he
+succeeded; and only two years after his DEBUT, Lacordaire was preaching
+in Notre Dame to audiences such as few French orators have addressed
+since the time of Bossuet and Massillon.
+
+When Mr. Cobden first appeared as a speaker, at a public meeting in
+Manchester, he completely broke down, and the chairman apologized for
+his failure. Sir James Graham and Mr. Disraeli failed and were derided
+at first, and only succeeded by dint of great labour and application.
+At one time Sir James Graham had almost given up public speaking in
+despair. He said to his friend Sir Francis Baring: "I have tried it
+every way--extempore, from notes, and committing all to memory--and
+I can't do it. I don't know why it is, but I am afraid I shall never
+succeed." Yet, by dint of perseverance, Graham, like Disraeli, lived
+to become one of the most effective and impressive of parliamentary
+speakers.
+
+Failures in one direction have sometimes had the effect of forcing the
+farseeing student to apply himself in another. Thus Prideaux's failure
+as a candidate for the post of parish-clerk of Ugboro, in Devon, led to
+his applying himself to learning, and to his eventual elevation to the
+bishopric of Worcester. When Boileau, educated for the bar, pleaded his
+first cause, he broke down amidst shouts of laughter. He next tried the
+pulpit, and failed there too. And then he tried poetry, and succeeded.
+Fontenelle and Voltaire both failed at the bar. So Cowper, through his
+diffidence and shyness, broke down when pleading his first cause, though
+he lived to revive the poetic art in England. Montesquieu and Bentham
+both failed as lawyers, and forsook the bar for more congenial
+pursuits--the latter leaving behind him a treasury of legislative
+procedure for all time. Goldsmith failed in passing as a surgeon; but
+he wrote the 'Deserted Village' and the 'Vicar of Wakefield;' whilst
+Addison failed as a speaker, but succeeded in writing 'Sir Roger de
+Coverley,' and his many famous papers in the 'Spectator.'
+
+Even the privation of some important bodily sense, such as sight or
+hearing, has not been sufficient to deter courageous men from zealously
+pursuing the struggle of life. Milton, when struck by blindness, "still
+bore up and steered right onward." His greatest works were produced
+during that period of his life in which he suffered most--when he was
+poor, sick, old, blind, slandered, and persecuted.
+
+The lives of some of the greatest men have been a continuous struggle
+with difficulty and apparent defeat. Dante produced his greatest work in
+penury and exile. Banished from his native city by the local faction
+to which he was opposed, his house was given up to plunder, and he was
+sentenced in his absence to be burnt alive. When informed by a friend
+that he might return to Florence, if he would consent to ask for pardon
+and absolution, he replied: "No! This is not the way that shall lead me
+back to my country. I will return with hasty steps if you, or any other,
+can open to me a way that shall not derogate from the fame or the
+honour of Dante; but if by no such way Florence can be entered, then to
+Florence I shall never return." His enemies remaining implacable, Dante,
+after a banishment of twenty years, died in exile. They even pursued
+him after death, when his book, 'De Monarchia,' was publicly burnt at
+Bologna by order of the Papal Legate.
+
+Camoens also wrote his great poems mostly in banishment. Tired of
+solitude at Santarem, he joined an expedition against the Moors, in
+which he distinguished himself by his bravery. He lost an eye when
+boarding an enemy's ship in a sea-fight. At Goa, in the East Indies, he
+witnessed with indignation the cruelty practised by the Portuguese on
+the natives, and expostulated with the governor against it. He was in
+consequence banished from the settlement, and sent to China. In the
+course of his subsequent adventures and misfortunes, Camoens suffered
+shipwreck, escaping only with his life and the manuscript of his
+'Lusiad.' Persecution and hardship seemed everywhere to pursue him.
+At Macao he was thrown into prison. Escaping from it, he set sail
+for Lisbon, where he arrived, after sixteen years' absence, poor and
+friendless. His 'Lusiad,' which was shortly after published, brought
+him much fame, but no money. But for his old Indian slave Antonio, who
+begged for his master in the streets, Camoens must have perished. [215] As
+it was, he died in a public almshouse, worn out by disease and hardship.
+An inscription was placed over his grave:--"Here lies Luis de Camoens:
+he excelled all the poets of his time: he lived poor and miserable; and
+he died so, MDLXXIX." This record, disgraceful but truthful, has since
+been removed; and a lying and pompous epitaph, in honour of the great
+national poet of Portugal, has been substituted in its stead.
+
+Even Michael Angelo was exposed, during the greater part of his life,
+to the persecutions of the envious--vulgar nobles, vulgar priests, and
+sordid men of every degree, who could neither sympathise with him, nor
+comprehend his genius. When Paul IV. condemned some of his work in 'The
+Last Judgment,' the artist observed that "The Pope would do better
+to occupy himself with correcting the disorders and indecencies which
+disgrace the world, than with any such hypercriticisms upon his art."
+
+Tasso also was the victim of almost continual persecution and calumny.
+After lying in a madhouse for seven years, he became a wanderer over
+Italy; and when on his deathbed, he wrote: "I will not complain of
+the malignity of fortune, because I do not choose to speak of the
+ingratitude of men who have succeeded in dragging me to the tomb of a
+mendicant."
+
+But Time brings about strange revenges. The persecutors and the
+persecuted often change places; it is the latter who are great--the
+former who are infamous. Even the names of the persecutors would
+probably long ago have been forgotten, but for their connection with the
+history of the men whom they have persecuted. Thus, who would now have
+known of Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, but for his imprisonment of Tasso? Or,
+who would have heard of the existence of the Grand Duke of Wurtemburg of
+some ninety years back, but for his petty persecution of Schiller?
+
+Science also has had its martyrs, who have fought their way to light
+through difficulty, persecution, and suffering. We need not refer again
+to the cases of Bruno, Galileo, and others, [216] persecuted because
+of the supposed heterodoxy of their views. But there have been other
+unfortunates amongst men of science, whose genius has been unable to
+save them from the fury of their enemies. Thus Bailly, the celebrated
+French astronomer [21who had been mayor of Paris], and Lavoisier, the
+great chemist, were both guillotined in the first French Revolution.
+When the latter, after being sentenced to death by the Commune, asked
+for a few days' respite, to enable him to ascertain the result of some
+experiments he had made during his confinement, the tribunal refused
+his appeal, and ordered him for immediate execution--one of the judges
+saying, that "the Republic had no need of philosophers." In England
+also, about the same time, Dr. Priestley, the father of modern
+chemistry, had his house burnt over his head, and his library destroyed,
+amidst shouts of "No philosophers!" and he fled from his native country
+to lay his bones in a foreign land.
+
+The work of some of the greatest discoverers has been done in the midst
+of persecution, difficulty, and suffering. Columbus, who discovered
+the New World and gave it as a heritage to the Old, was in his lifetime
+persecuted, maligned, and plundered by those whom he had enriched. Mungo
+Park's drowning agony in the African river he had discovered, but which
+he was not to live to describe; Clapperton's perishing of fever on the
+banks of the great lake, in the heart of the same continent, which
+was afterwards to be rediscovered and described by other explorers;
+Franklin's perishing in the snow--it might be after he had solved
+the long-sought problem of the North-west Passage--are among the most
+melancholy events in the history of enterprise and genius.
+
+The case of Flinders the navigator, who suffered a six years'
+imprisonment in the Isle of France, was one of peculiar hardship. In
+1801, he set sail from England in the INVESTIGATOR, on a voyage of
+discovery and survey, provided with a French pass, requiring all French
+governors [21notwithstanding that England and France were at war] to give
+him protection and succour in the sacred name of science. In the course
+of his voyage he surveyed great part of Australia, Van Diemen's Land,
+and the neighbouring islands. The INVESTIGATOR, being found leaky and
+rotten, was condemned, and the navigator embarked as passenger in the
+PORPOISE for England, to lay the results of his three years' labours
+before the Admiralty. On the voyage home the PORPOISE was wrecked on a
+reef in the South Seas, and Flinders, with part of the crew, in an open
+boat, made for Port Jackson, which they safely reached, though distant
+from the scene of the wreck not less than 750 miles. There he procured a
+small schooner, the CUMBERLAND, no larger than a Gravesend sailing-boat,
+and returned for the remainder of the crew, who had been left on the
+reef. Having rescued them, he set sail for England, making for the Isle
+of France, which the CUMBERLAND reached in a sinking condition, being
+a wretched little craft badly found. To his surprise, he was made a
+prisoner with all his crew, and thrown into prison, where he was treated
+with brutal harshness, his French pass proving no protection to him.
+What aggravated the horrors of Flinders' confinement was, that he knew
+that Baudin, the French navigator, whom he had encountered while making
+his survey of the Australian coasts, would reach Europe first, and claim
+the merit of all the discoveries he had made. It turned out as he had
+expected; and while Flinders was still imprisoned in the Isle of France,
+the French Atlas of the new discoveries was published, all the points
+named by Flinders and his precursors being named afresh. Flinders was at
+length liberated, after six years' imprisonment, his health completely
+broken; but he continued correcting his maps, and writing out his
+descriptions to the last. He only lived long enough to correct his
+final sheet for the press, and died on the very day that his work was
+published!
+
+Courageous men have often turned enforced solitude to account in
+executing works of great pith and moment. It is in solitude that the
+passion for spiritual perfection best nurses itself. The soul communes
+with itself in loneliness until its energy often becomes intense. But
+whether a man profits by solitude or not will mainly depend upon his
+own temperament, training, and character. While, in a large-natured man,
+solitude will make the pure heart purer, in the small-natured man it
+will only serve to make the hard heart still harder: for though solitude
+may be the nurse of great spirits, it is the torment of small ones.
+
+It was in prison that Boetius wrote his 'Consolations of Philosophy,'
+and Grotius his 'Commentary on St. Matthew,' regarded as his masterwork
+in Biblical Criticism. Buchanan composed his beautiful 'Paraphrases
+on the Psalms' while imprisoned in the cell of a Portuguese monastery.
+Campanella, the Italian patriot monk, suspected of treason, was immured
+for twenty-seven years in a Neapolitan dungeon, during which, deprived
+of the sun's light, he sought higher light, and there created his
+'Civitas Solis,' which has been so often reprinted and reproduced in
+translations in most European languages. During his thirteen years'
+imprisonment in the Tower, Raleigh wrote his 'History of the World,' a
+project of vast extent, of which he was only able to finish the first
+five books. Luther occupied his prison hours in the Castle of Wartburg
+in translating the Bible, and in writing the famous tracts and treatises
+with which he inundated all Germany.
+
+It was to the circumstance of John Bunyan having been cast into gaol
+that we probably owe the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' He was thus driven in
+upon himself; having no opportunity for action, his active mind
+found vent in earnest thinking and meditation; and indeed, after
+his enlargement, his life as an author virtually ceased. His 'Grace
+Abounding' and the 'Holy War' were also written in prison. Bunyan lay
+in Bedford Gaol, with a few intervals of precarious liberty, during not
+less than twelve years; [217] and it was most probably to his prolonged
+imprisonment that we owe what Macaulay has characterised as the finest
+allegory in the world.
+
+All the political parties of the times in which Bunyan lived, imprisoned
+their opponents when they had the opportunity and the power. Bunyan's
+prison experiences were principally in the time of Charles II. But in
+the preceding reign of Charles I., as well as during the Commonwealth,
+illustrious prisoners were very numerous. The prisoners of the former
+included Sir John Eliot, Hampden, Selden, Prynne [218] [21a most voluminous
+prison-writer], and many more. It was while under strict confinement
+in the Tower, that Eliot composed his noble treatise, 'The Monarchy
+of Man.' George Wither, the poet, was another prisoner of Charles the
+First, and it was while confined in the Marshalsea that he wrote his
+famous 'Satire to the King.' At the Restoration he was again imprisoned
+in Newgate, from which he was transferred to the Tower, and he is
+supposed by some to have died there.
+
+The Commonwealth also had its prisoners. Sir William Davenant, because
+of his loyalty, was for some time confined a prisoner in Cowes Castle,
+where he wrote the greater part of his poem of 'Gondibert': and it
+is said that his life was saved principally through the generous
+intercession of Milton. He lived to repay the debt, and to save Milton's
+life when "Charles enjoyed his own again." Lovelace, the poet and
+cavalier, was also imprisoned by the Roundheads, and was only liberated
+from the Gatehouse on giving an enormous bail. Though he suffered and
+lost all for the Stuarts, he was forgotten by them at the Restoration,
+and died in extreme poverty.
+
+Besides Wither and Bunyan, Charles II. imprisoned Baxter, Harrington
+[21the author of 'Oceana'], Penn, and many more. All these men solaced
+their prison hours with writing. Baxter wrote some of the most
+remarkable passages of his 'Life and Times' while lying in the King's
+Bench Prison; and Penn wrote his 'No Cross no Crown' while imprisoned in
+the Tower. In the reign of Queen Anne, Matthew Prior was in confinement
+on a vamped-up charge of treason for two years, during which he wrote
+his 'Alma, or Progress of the Soul.'
+
+Since then, political prisoners of eminence in England have been
+comparatively few in number. Among the most illustrious were De Foe,
+who, besides standing three times in the pillory, spent much of his
+time in prison, writing 'Robinson Crusoe' there, and many of his best
+political pamphlets. There also he wrote his 'Hymn to the Pillory,' and
+corrected for the press a collection of his voluminous writings. [219]
+Smollett wrote his 'Sir Lancelot Greaves' in prison, while undergoing
+confinement for libel. Of recent prison-writers in England, the best
+known are James Montgomery, who wrote his first volume of poems while a
+prisoner in York Castle; and Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, who wrote his
+'Purgatory of Suicide' in Stafford Gaol.
+
+Silvio Pellico was one of the latest and most illustrious of the prison
+writers of Italy. He lay confined in Austrian gaols for ten years, eight
+of which he passed in the Castle of Spielberg in Moravia. It was there
+that he composed his charming 'Memoirs,' the only materials for which
+were furnished by his fresh living habit of observation; and out of even
+the transient visits of his gaoler's daughter, and the colourless events
+of his monotonous daily life, he contrived to make for himself a little
+world of thought and healthy human interest.
+
+Kazinsky, the great reviver of Hungarian literature, spent seven years
+of his life in the dungeons of Buda, Brunne, Kufstein, and Munkacs,
+during which he wrote a 'Diary of his Imprisonment,' and amongst
+other things translated Sterno's 'Sentimental Journey;' whilst Kossuth
+beguiled his two years' imprisonment at Buda in studying English, so as
+to be able to read Shakspeare in the original.
+
+Men who, like these, suffer the penalty of law, and seem to fail, at
+least for a time, do not really fail. Many, who have seemed to fail
+utterly, have often exercised a more potent and enduring influence upon
+their race, than those whose career has been a course of uninterupted
+success. The character of a man does not depend on whether his efforts
+are immediately followed by failure or by success. The martyr is not
+a failure if the truth for which he suffered acquires a fresh lustre
+through his sacrifice. [2110] The patriot who lays down his life for his
+cause, may thereby hasten its triumph; and those who seem to throw their
+lives away in the van of a great movement, often open a way for those
+who follow them, and pass over their dead bodies to victory. The triumph
+of a just cause may come late; but when it does come, it is due as much
+to those who failed in their first efforts, as to those who succeeded in
+their last.
+
+The example of a great death may be an inspiration to others, as well as
+the example of a good life. A great act does not perish with the life of
+him who performs it, but lives and grows up into like acts in those who
+survive the doer thereof and cherish his memory. Of some great men, it
+might almost be said that they have not begun to live until they have
+died.
+
+The names of the men who have suffered in the cause of religion, of
+science, and of truth, are the men of all others whose memories are
+held in the greatest esteem and reverence by mankind. They perished,
+but their truth survived. They seemed to fail, and yet they eventually
+succeeded. [2111] Prisons may have held them, but their thoughts were not
+to be confined by prison-walls. They have burst through, and defied the
+power of their persecutors. It was Lovelace, a prisoner, who wrote:
+
+        "Stone walls do not a prison make,
+            Nor iron bars a cage;
+          Minds innocent and quiet take
+            That for a hermitage."
+
+It was a saying of Milton that, "who best can suffer best can do." The
+work of many of the greatest men, inspired by duty, has been done amidst
+suffering and trial and difficulty. They have struggled against the
+tide, and reached the shore exhausted, only to grasp the sand and
+expire. They have done their duty, and been content to die. But death
+hath no power over such men; their hallowed memories still survive,
+to soothe and purify and bless us. "Life," said Goethe, "to us all is
+suffering. Who save God alone shall call us to our reckoning? Let not
+reproaches fall on the departed. Not what they have failed in, nor
+what they have suffered, but what they have done, ought to occupy the
+survivors."
+
+Thus, it is not ease and facility that tries men, and brings out the
+good that is in them, so much as trial and difficulty. Adversity is the
+touchstone of character. As some herbs need to be crushed to give forth
+their sweetest odour, so some natures need to be tried by suffering to
+evoke the excellence that is in them. Hence trials often unmask
+virtues, and bring to light hidden graces. Men apparently useless and
+purposeless, when placed in positions of difficulty and responsibility,
+have exhibited powers of character before unsuspected; and where we
+before saw only pliancy and self-indulgence, we now see strength,
+valour, and self-denial.
+
+As there are no blessings which may not be perverted into evils, so
+there are no trials which may not be converted into blessings. All
+depends on the manner in which we profit by them or otherwise. Perfect
+happiness is not to be looked for in this world. If it could be secured,
+it would be found profitless. The hollowest of all gospels is the
+gospel of ease and comfort. Difficulty, and even failure, are far
+better teachers. Sir Humphry Davy said: "Even in private life, too much
+prosperity either injures the moral man, and occasions conduct which
+ends in suffering; or it is accompanied by the workings of envy,
+calumny, and malevolence of others."
+
+Failure improves tempers and strengthens the nature. Even sorrow is in
+some mysterious way linked with joy and associated with tenderness. John
+Bunyan once said how, "if it were lawful, he could even pray for greater
+trouble, for the greater comfort's sake." When surprise was expressed at
+the patience of a poor Arabian woman under heavy affliction, she said,
+"When we look on God's face we do not feel His hand."
+
+Suffering is doubtless as divinely appointed as joy, while it is much
+more influential as a discipline of character. It chastens and sweetens
+the nature, teaches patience and resignation, and promotes the deepest
+as well as the most exalted thought. [2112]
+
+                      "The best of men
+      That e'er wore earth about Him was a sufferer;
+      A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit
+      The first true gentleman that ever breathed." [2113]
+
+Suffering may be the appointed means by which the highest nature of man
+is to be disciplined and developed. Assuming happiness to be the end of
+being, sorrow may be the indispensable condition through which it is to
+be reached. Hence St. Paul's noble paradox descriptive of the Christian
+life,--"as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always
+rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet
+possessing all things."
+
+Even pain is not all painful. On one side it is related to suffering,
+and on the other to happiness. For pain is remedial as well as
+sorrowful. Suffering is a misfortune as viewed from the one side, and a
+discipline as viewed from the other. But for suffering, the best part of
+many men's nature would sleep a deep sleep. Indeed, it might almost
+be said that pain and sorrow were the indispensable conditions of some
+men's success, and the necessary means to evoke the highest development
+of their genius. Shelley has said of poets:
+
+      "Most wretched men are cradled into poetry by wrong,
+       They learn in suffering what they teach in song."
+
+Does any one suppose that Burns would have sung as he did, had he
+been rich, respectable, and "kept a gig;" or Byron, if he had been a
+prosperous, happily-married Lord Privy Seal or Postmaster-General?
+
+Sometimes a heartbreak rouses an impassive nature to life. "What does
+he know," said a sage, "who has not suffered?" When Dumas asked Reboul,
+"What made you a poet?" his answer was, "Suffering!" It was the death,
+first of his wife, and then of his child, that drove him into solitude
+for the indulgence of his grief, and eventually led him to seek and find
+relief in verse. [2114] It was also to a domestic affliction that we owe
+the beautiful writings of Mrs. Gaskell. "It was as a recreation, in the
+highest sense of the word," says a recent writer, speaking from personal
+knowledge, "as an escape from the great void of a life from which
+a cherished presence had been taken, that she began that series of
+exquisite creations which has served to multiply the number of our
+acquaintances, and to enlarge even the circle of our friendships." [2115]
+
+Much of the best and most useful work done by men and women has been
+done amidst affliction--sometimes as a relief from it, sometimes from a
+sense of duty overpowering personal sorrow. "If I had not been so great
+an invalid," said Dr. Darwin to a friend, "I should not have done nearly
+so much work as I have been able to accomplish." So Dr. Donne, speaking
+of his illnesses, once said: "This advantage you and my other friends
+have by my frequent fevers is, that I am so much the oftener at the
+gates of Heaven; and by the solitude and close imprisonment they reduce
+me to, I am so much the oftener at my prayers, in which you and my other
+dear friends are not forgotten."
+
+Schiller produced his greatest tragedies in the midst of physical
+suffering almost amounting to torture. Handel was never greater than
+when, warned by palsy of the approach of death, and struggling with
+distress and suffering, he sat down to compose the great works which
+have made his name immortal in music. Mozart composed his great operas,
+and last of all his 'Requiem,' when oppressed by debt, and struggling
+with a fatal disease. Beethoven produced his greatest works amidst
+gloomy sorrow, when oppressed by almost total deafness. And poor
+Schubert, after his short but brilliant life, laid it down at the early
+age of thirty-two; his sole property at his death consisting of his
+manuscripts, the clothes he wore, and sixty-three florins in money. Some
+of Lamb's finest writings were produced amidst deep sorrow, and Hood's
+apparent gaiety often sprang from a suffering heart. As he himself
+wrote,
+
+      "There's not a string attuned to mirth,
+       But has its chord in melancholy."
+
+Again, in science, we have the noble instance of the suffering
+Wollaston, even in the last stages of the mortal disease which afflicted
+him, devoting his numbered hours to putting on record, by dictation, the
+various discoveries and improvements he had made, so that any knowledge
+he had acquired, calculated to benefit his fellow-creatures, might not
+be lost.
+
+Afflictions often prove but blessings in disguise. "Fear not the
+darkness," said the Persian sage; it "conceals perhaps the springs of
+the waters of life." Experience is often bitter, but wholesome; only
+by its teaching can we learn to suffer and be strong. Character, in
+its highest forms, is disciplined by trial, and "made perfect through
+suffering." Even from the deepest sorrow, the patient and thoughtful
+mind will gather richer wisdom than pleasure ever yielded.
+
+"The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decayed, Lets in new light
+through chinks that Time has made."
+
+"Consider," said Jeremy Taylor, "that sad accidents, and a state of
+afflictions, is a school of virtue. It reduces our spirits to soberness,
+and our counsels to moderation; it corrects levity, and interrupts
+the confidence of sinning.... God, who in mercy and wisdom governs the
+world, would never have suffered so many sadnesses, and have sent them,
+especially, to the most virtuous and the wisest men, but that He intends
+they should be the seminary of comfort, the nursery of virtue, the
+exercise of wisdom, the trial of patience, the venturing for a crown,
+and the gate of glory." [2116]
+
+And again:--"No man is more miserable than he that hath no adversity.
+That man is not tried, whether he be good or bad; and God never crowns
+those virtues which are only FACULTIES and DISPOSITIONS; but every act
+of virtue is an ingredient unto reward." [2117]
+
+Prosperity and success of themselves do not confer happiness; indeed,
+it not unfrequently happens that the least successful in life have the
+greatest share of true joy in it. No man could have been more
+successful than Goethe--possessed of splendid health, honour, power, and
+sufficiency of this world's goods--and yet he confessed that he had not,
+in the course of his life, enjoyed five weeks of genuine pleasure.
+So the Caliph Abdalrahman, in surveying his successful reign of fifty
+years, found that he had enjoyed only fourteen days of pure and genuine
+happiness. [2118] After this, might it not be said that the pursuit of
+mere happiness is an illusion?
+
+Life, all sunshine without shade, all happiness without sorrow, all
+pleasure without pain, were not life at all--at least not human life.
+Take the lot of the happiest--it is a tangled yarn. It is made up
+of sorrows and joys; and the joys are all the sweeter because of the
+sorrows; bereavements and blessings, one following another, making us
+sad and blessed by turns. Even death itself makes life more loving; it
+binds us more closely together while here. Dr. Thomas Browne has argued
+that death is one of the necessary conditions of human happiness; and
+he supports his argument with great force and eloquence. But when death
+comes into a household, we do not philosophise--we only feel. The eyes
+that are full of tears do not see; though in course of time they come to
+see more clearly and brightly than those that have never known sorrow.
+
+The wise person gradually learns not to expect too much from life.
+While he strives for success by worthy methods, he will be prepared for
+failures, he will keep his mind open to enjoyment, but submit patiently
+to suffering. Wailings and complainings of life are never of any use;
+only cheerful and continuous working in right paths are of real avail.
+
+Nor will the wise man expect too much from those about him. If he would
+live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear. And even the best
+have often foibles of character which have to be endured, sympathised
+with, and perhaps pitied. Who is perfect? Who does not suffer from
+some thorn in the flesh? Who does not stand in need of toleration, of
+forbearance, of forgiveness? What the poor imprisoned Queen Caroline
+Matilda of Denmark wrote on her chapel-window ought to be the prayer of
+all,--"Oh! keep me innocent! make others great."
+
+Then, how much does the disposition of every human being depend upon
+their innate constitution and their early surroundings; the comfort
+or discomfort of the homes in which they have been brought up; their
+inherited characteristics; and the examples, good or bad, to which they
+have been exposed through life! Regard for such considerations should
+teach charity and forbearance to all men.
+
+At the same time, life will always be to a large extent what we
+ourselves make it. Each mind makes its own little world. The cheerful
+mind makes it pleasant, and the discontented mind makes it miserable.
+"My mind to me a kingdom is," applies alike to the peasant as to the
+monarch. The one may be in his heart a king, as the other may be a
+slave. Life is for the most part but the mirror of our own individual
+selves. Our mind gives to all situations, to all fortunes, high or low,
+their real characters. To the good, the world is good; to the bad, it
+is bad. If our views of life be elevated--if we regard it as a sphere of
+useful effort, of high living and high thinking, of working for others'
+good as well as our own--it will be joyful, hopeful, and blessed. If,
+on the contrary, we regard it merely as affording opportunities for
+self-seeking, pleasure, and aggrandisement, it will be full of toil,
+anxiety, and disappointment.
+
+There is much in life that, while in this state, we can never
+comprehend. There is, indeed, a great deal of mystery in life--much that
+we see "as in a glass darkly." But though we may not apprehend the full
+meaning of the discipline of trial through which the best have to pass,
+we must have faith in the completeness of the design of which our little
+individual lives form a part.
+
+We have each to do our duty in that sphere of life in which we have
+been placed. Duty alone is true; there is no true action but in its
+accomplishment. Duty is the end and aim of the highest life; the
+truest pleasure of all is that derived from the consciousness of
+its fulfilment. Of all others, it is the one that is most thoroughly
+satisfying, and the least accompanied by regret and disappointment. In
+the words of George Herbert, the consciousness of duty performed "gives
+us music at midnight."
+
+And when we have done our work on earth--of necessity, of labour, of
+love, or of duty,--like the silkworm that spins its little cocoon and
+dies, we too depart. But, short though our stay in life may be, it is
+the appointed sphere in which each has to work out the great aim and
+end of his being to the best of his power; and when that is done, the
+accidents of the flesh will affect but little the immortality we shall
+at last put on:
+
+        "Therefore we can go die as sleep, and trust
+                            Half that we have
+                     Unto an honest faithful grave;
+        Making our pillows either down or dust!"
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 101: Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, Lord High Treasurer under Elizabeth and
+James I.]
+
+[Footnote 102: 'Life of Perthes,' ii. 217.]
+
+[Footnote 103: Lockhart's 'Life of Scott.']
+
+[Footnote 104: Debate on the Petition of Right, A.D. 1628.]
+
+[Footnote 105: The Rev. F. W. Farrer's 'Seekers after God,' p. 241.]
+
+[Footnote 106: 'The Statesman,' p. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 107: 'Queen of the Air,' p. 127]
+
+[Footnote 108: "Instead of saying that man is the creature of Circumstance, it would
+be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of Circumstance. It
+is Character which builds an existence out of Circumstance. Our strength
+is measured by our plastic power. From the same materials one man builds
+palaces, another hovels: one warehouses, another villas. Bricks
+and mortar are mortar and bricks, until the architect can make them
+something else. Thus it is that in the same family, in the same
+circumstances, one man rears a stately edifice, while his brother,
+vacillating and incompetent, lives for ever amid ruins: the block of
+granite, which was an obstacle on the pathway of the weak, becomes a
+stepping-stone on the pathway of the strong."--G. H. Lewes, LIFE OF
+GOETHE.]
+
+[Footnote 109: Introduction to 'The Principal Speeches and Addresses of H.R.H. the
+Prince Consort' [101862], pp. 39-40.]
+
+[Footnote 1010: Among the latest of these was Napoleon "the Great," a man of
+abounding energy, but destitute of principle. He had the lowest opinion
+of his fellowmen. "Men are hogs, who feed on gold," he once said: "Well,
+I throw them gold, and lead them whithersoever I will." When the Abbe de
+Pradt, Archbishop of Malines, was setting out on his embassy to Poland
+in 1812, Napoleon's parting instruction to him was, "Tenez bonne table
+et soignez les femmes,"--of which Benjamin Constant said that such an
+observation, addressed to a feeble priest of sixty, shows Buonaparte's
+profound contempt for the human race, without distinction of nation or
+sex.]
+
+[Footnote 1011: Condensed from Sir Thomas Overbury's 'Characters' [101614].]
+
+[Footnote 1012: 'History of the Peninsular War,' v. 319.--Napier mentions another
+striking illustration of the influence of personal qualities in young
+Edward Freer, of the same regiment [10the 43rd], who, when he fell at the
+age of nineteen, at the Battle of the Nivelle, had already seen more
+combats and sieges than he could count years. "So slight in person, and
+of such surpassing beauty, that the Spaniards often thought him a girl
+disguised in man's clothing, he was yet so vigorous, so active, so
+brave, that the most daring and experienced veterans watched his looks
+on the field of battle, and, implicitly following where he led,
+would, like children, obey his slightest sign in the most difficult
+situations."]
+
+[Footnote 1013: When the dissolution of the Union at one time seemed imminent, and
+Washington wished to retire into private life, Jefferson wrote to him,
+urging his continuance in office. "The confidence of the whole Union,"
+he said, "centres in you. Your being at the helm will be more than an
+answer to every argument which can be used to alarm and lead the people
+in any quarter into violence and secession.... There is sometimes an
+eminence of character on which society has such peculiar claims as to
+control the predilection of the individual for a particular walk of
+happiness, and restrain him to that alone arising from the present and
+future benedictions of mankind. This seems to be your condition, and
+the law imposed on you by Providence in forming your character and
+fashioning the events on which it was to operate; and it is to motives
+like these, and not to personal anxieties of mine or others, who have
+no right to call on you for sacrifices, that I appeal from your former
+determination, and urge a revisal of it, on the ground of change in the
+aspect of things."--Sparks' Life of Washington, i. 480.]
+
+[Footnote 1014: Napier's 'History of the Peninsular War,' v. 226.]
+
+[Footnote 1015: Sir W. Scott's 'History of Scotland,' vol. i. chap. xvi.]
+
+[Footnote 1016: Michelet's 'History of Rome,' p. 374.]
+
+[Footnote 1017: Erasmus so reverenced the character of Socrates that he said, when
+he considered his life and doctrines, he was inclined to put him in the
+calendar of saints, and to exclaim, "SANCTE SOCRATES, ORA PRO NOBIS."
+(Holy Socrates, pray for us!)]
+
+[Footnote 1018: "Honour to all the brave and true; everlasting honour to John Knox
+one of the truest of the true! That, in the moment while he and his
+cause, amid civil broils, in convulsion and confusion, were still but
+struggling for life, he sent the schoolmaster forth to all corners, and
+said, 'Let the people be taught:' this is but one, and, and indeed, an
+inevitable and comparatively inconsiderable item in his great message to
+men. This message, in its true compass, was, 'Let men know that they are
+men created by God, responsible to God who work in any meanest moment
+of time what will last through eternity...' This great message Knox did
+deliver, with a man's voice and strength; and found a people to believe
+him. Of such an achievement, were it to be made once only, the results
+are immense. Thought, in such a country, may change its form, but
+cannot go out; the country has attained MAJORITY thought, and a certain
+manhood, ready for all work that man can do, endures there.... The
+Scotch national character originated in many circumstances: first of
+all, in the Saxon stuff there was to work on; but next, and beyond all
+else except that, is the Presbyterian Gospel of John Knox."--(Carlyle's
+MISCELLANIES, iv. 118.)]
+
+[Footnote 1019: Moore's 'Life of Byron,' 8vo. ed. p.484.--Dante was a religious
+as well as a political reformer. He was a reformer three hundred years
+before the Reformation, advocating the separation of the spiritual from
+the civil power, and declaring the temporal government of the Pope to
+be a usurpation. The following memorable words were written over five
+hundred and sixty years ago, while Dante was still a member of the Roman
+Catholic Church:--"Every Divine law is found in one or other of the two
+Testaments; but in neither can I find that the care of temporal matters
+was given to the priesthood. On the contrary, I find that the first
+priests were removed from them by law, and the later priests, by command
+of Christ, to His disciples."--DE MONARCHIA, lib. iii. cap. xi.
+
+Dante also, still clinging to 'the Church he wished to reform,' thus
+anticipated the fundamental doctrine of the Reformation:-"Before the
+Church are the Old and New Testament; after the Church are traditions.
+It follows, then, that the authority of the Church depends, not on
+traditions, but traditions on the Church."]
+
+[Footnote 1020: 'Blackwood's Magazine,' June, 1863, art. 'Girolamo Savonarola.']
+
+[Footnote 1021: One of the last passages in the Diary of Dr. Arnold, written the
+year before his death, was as follows:--"It is the misfortune of France
+that her 'past' cannot be loved or respected--her future and her present
+cannot be wedded to it; yet how can the present yield fruit, or the
+future have promise, except their roots be fixed in the past? The evil
+is infinite, but the blame rests with those who made the past a dead
+thing, out of which no healthful life could be produced."--LIFE, ii.
+387-8, Ed. 1858.]
+
+[Footnote 1022: A public orator lately spoke with contempt of the Battle of
+Marathon, because only 192 perished on the side of the Athenians,
+whereas by improved mechanism and destructive chemicals, some 50,000
+men or more may now be destroyed within a few hours. Yet the Battle of
+Marathon, and the heroism displayed in it, will probably continue to
+be remembered when the gigantic butcheries of modern times have been
+forgotten.]
+
+[Footnote 111: Civic virtues, unless they have their origin and consecration in
+private and domestic virtues, are but the virtues of the theatre. He who
+has not a loving heart for his child, cannot pretend to have any true
+love for humanity.--Jules Simon's LE DEVOIR.]
+
+[Footnote 112: 'Levana; or, The Doctrine of Education.']
+
+[Footnote 113: Speaking of the force of habit, St. Augustine says in his
+'Confessions' "My will the enemy held, and thence had made a chain for
+me, and bound me. For of a froward will was a lust made; and a lust
+served became custom; and custom not resisted became necessity. By which
+links, as it were, joined together [11whence I called it a chain] a hard
+bondage held me enthralled."]
+
+[Footnote 114: Mr. Tufnell, in 'Reports of Inspectors of Parochial School Unions in
+England and Wales,' 1850.]
+
+[Footnote 115: See the letters [11January 13th, 16th, 18th, 20th, and 23rd, 1759],
+written by Johnson to his mother when she was ninety, and he himself was
+in his fiftieth year.--Crokers BOSWELL, 8vo. Ed. pp. 113, 114.]
+
+[Footnote 116: Jared Sparks' 'Life of Washington.']
+
+[Footnote 117: Forster's 'Eminent British Statesmen' [11Cabinet Cyclop.] vi. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 118: The Earl of Mornington, composer of 'Here in cool grot,' &c.]
+
+[Footnote 119: Robert Bell's 'Life of Canning,' p. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 1110: 'Life of Curran,' by his son, p. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 1111: The father of the Wesleys had even determined at one time to
+abandon his wife because her conscience forbade her to assent to his
+prayers for the then reigning monarch, and he was only saved from the
+consequences of his rash resolve by the accidental death of William
+III. He displayed the same overbearing disposition in dealing with his
+children; forcing his daughter Mehetabel to marry, against her will, a
+man whom she did not love, and who proved entirely unworthy of her.]
+
+[Footnote 1112: Goethe himself says--"Vom Vater hab' ich die Statur, Des Lebens
+ernstes Fuhren; Von Mutterchen die Frohnatur Und Lust zu fabuliren."]
+
+[Footnote 1113: Mrs. Grote's 'Life of Ary Scheffer,' p. 154.]
+
+[Footnote 1114: Michelet, 'On Priests, Women, and Families.']
+
+[Footnote 1115: Mrs. Byron is said to have died in a fit of passion, brought on by
+reading her upholsterer's bills.]
+
+[Footnote 1116: Sainte-Beuve, 'Causeries du Lundi,' i. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 1117: Ibid. i. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 1118: Ibid. 1. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 1119: That about one-third of all the children born in this country die
+under five years of age, can only he attributable to ignorance of the
+natural laws, ignorance of the human constitution, and ignorance of
+the uses of pure air, pure water, and of the art of preparing and
+administering wholesome food. There is no such mortality amongst the
+lower animals.]
+
+[Footnote 1120: Beaumarchais' 'Figaro,' which was received with such enthusiasm in
+France shortly before the outbreak of the Revolution, may be regarded as
+a typical play; it represented the average morality of the upper as well
+as the lower classes with respect to the relations between the sexes.
+"Label men how you please," says Herbert Spencer, "with titles of
+'upper' and 'middle' and 'lower,' you cannot prevent them from being
+units of the same society, acted upon by the same spirit of the age,
+moulded after the same type of character. The mechanical law, that
+action and reaction are equal, has its moral analogue. The deed of one
+man to another tends ultimately to produce a like effect upon both, be
+the deed good or bad. Do but put them in relationship, and no
+division into castes, no differences of wealth, can prevent men from
+assimilating.... The same influences which rapidly adapt the individual
+to his society, ensure, though by a slower process, the general
+uniformity of a national character.... And so long as the assimilating
+influences productive of it continue at work, it is folly to suppose
+any one grade of a community can be morally different from the rest. In
+whichever rank you see corruption, be assured it equally pervades all
+ranks--be assured it is the symptom of a bad social diathesis. Whilst
+the virus of depravity exists in one part of the body-politic, no other
+part can remain healthy."--SOCIAL STATICS, chap. xx. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 1121: Some twenty-eight years since, the author wrote and published the
+following passage, not without practical knowledge of the subject; and
+notwithstanding the great amelioration in the lot of factory-workers,
+effected mainly through the noble efforts of Lord Shaftesbury, the
+description is still to a large extent true:--"The factory system,
+however much it may have added to the wealth of the country, has had a
+most deleterious effect on the domestic condition of the people. It has
+invaded the sanctuary of home, and broken up family and social ties.
+It has taken the wife from the husband, and the children from their
+parents. Especially has its tendency been to lower the character of
+woman. The performance of domestic duties is her proper office,--the
+management of her household, the rearing of her family, the economizing
+of the family means, the supplying of the family wants. But the factory
+takes her from all these duties. Homes become no longer homes. Children
+grow up uneducated and neglected. The finer affections become blunted.
+Woman is no more the gentle wife, companion, and friend of man, but his
+fellow-labourer and fellow-drudge. She is exposed to influences which
+too often efface that modesty of thought and conduct which is one of the
+best safeguards of virtue. Without judgment or sound principles to guide
+them, factory-girls early acquire the feeling of independence. Ready to
+throw off the constraint imposed on them by their parents, they leave
+their homes, and speedily become initiated in the vices of their
+associates. The atmosphere, physical as well as moral, in which they
+live, stimulates their animal appetites; the influence of bad example
+becomes contagious among them and mischief is propagated far and
+wide."--THE UNION, January, 1843.]
+
+[Footnote 1122: A French satirist, pointing to the repeated PLEBISCITES and
+perpetual voting of late years, and to the growing want of faith
+in anything but votes, said, in 1870, that we seemed to be rapidly
+approaching the period when the only prayer of man and woman would be,
+"Give us this day our daily vote!"]
+
+[Footnote 1123: "Of primeval and necessary and absolute superiority, the relation
+of the mother to the child is far more complete, though less seldom
+quoted as an example, than that of father and son.... By Sir Robert
+Filmer, the supposed necessary as well as absolute power of the father
+over his children, was taken as the foundation and origin, and thence
+justifying cause, of the power of the monarch in every political state.
+With more propriety he might have stated the absolute dominion of a
+woman as the only legitimate form of government."--DEONTOLOGY, ii. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 121: 'Letters of Sir Charles Bell,' p. 10. [122: 'Autobiography of Mary
+Anne Schimmelpenninck,' p. 179.]
+
+[Footnote 123: Dean Stanley's 'Life of Dr. Arnold,' i. 151 [12Ed. 1858].]
+
+[Footnote 124: Lord Cockburn's 'Memorials,' pp. 25-6.]
+
+[Footnote 125: From a letter of Canon Moseley, read at a Memorial Meeting held
+shortly after the death of the late Lord Herbert of Lea.]
+
+[Footnote 126: Izaak Walton's 'Life of George Herbert.']
+
+[Footnote 127: Stanley's 'Life and Letters of Dr. Arnold,' i. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 128: Philip de Comines gives a curious illustration of the subservient,
+though enforced, imitation of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, by his
+courtiers. When that prince fell ill, and had his head shaved, he
+ordered that all his nobles, five hundred in number, should in like
+manner shave their heads; and one of them, Pierre de Hagenbach, to prove
+his devotion, no sooner caught sight of an unshaven nobleman, than
+he forthwith had him seized and carried off to the barber!--Philip de
+Comines [12Bohn's Ed.], p. 243.]
+
+[Footnote 129: 'Life,' i. 344.]
+
+[Footnote 1210: Introduction to 'The Principal Speeches and Addresses of H.R.H. the
+Prince Consort,' p. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 1211: Speech at Liverpool, 1812.]
+
+[Footnote 131:In the third chapter of his Natural History, Pliny relates in what
+high honour agriculture was held in the earlier days of Rome; how the
+divisions of land were measured by the quantity which could be ploughed
+by a yoke of oxen in a certain time [13JUGERUM, in one day; ACTUS, at one
+spell]; how the greatest recompence to a general or valiant citizen
+was a JUGERUM; how the earliest surnames were derived from agriculture
+(Pilumnus, from PILUM, the pestle for pounding corn; Piso, from PISO,
+to grind coin; Fabius, from FABA, a bean; Lentulus, from LENS, a lentil;
+Cicero, from CICER, a chickpea; Babulcus, from BOS, &c.); how the
+highest compliment was to call a man a good agriculturist, or a good
+husbandman (LOCUPLES, rich, LOCI PLENUS, PECUNIA, from PECUS, &c.);
+how the pasturing of cattle secretly by night upon unripe crops was a
+capital offence, punishable by hanging; how the rural tribes held the
+foremost rank, while those of the city had discredit thrown upon them as
+being an indolent race; and how "GLORIAM DENIQUE IPSAM, A FARRIS HONORE,
+'ADOREAM' APPELLABANT;" ADOREA, or Glory, the reward of valour, being
+derived from Ador, or spelt, a kind of grain.]
+
+[Footnote 132: 'Essay on Government,' in 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.']
+
+[Footnote 133: Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' Part i., Mem. 2, Sub. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 134: Ibid. End of concluding chapter.]
+
+[Footnote 135: It is characteristic of the Hindoos to regard entire inaction as
+the most perfect state, and to describe the Supreme Being as "The
+Unmoveable."]
+
+[Footnote 136: Lessing was so impressed with the conviction that stagnant
+satisfaction was fatal to man, that he went so far as to say: "If the
+All-powerful Being, holding in one hand Truth, and in the other
+the search for Truth, said to me, 'Choose,' I would answer Him, 'O
+All-powerful, keep for Thyself the Truth; but leave to me the search for
+it, which is the better for me.'" On the other hand, Bossuet said: "Si
+je concevais une nature purement intelligente, il me semble que je n'y
+mettrais qu'entendre et aimer la verite, et que cela seul la rendrait
+heureux."]
+
+[Footnote 137: The late Sir John Patteson, when in his seventieth year, attended an
+annual ploughing-match dinner at Feniton, Devon, at which he thought it
+worth his while to combat the notion, still too prevalent, that because
+a man does not work merely with his bones and muscles, he is therefore
+not entitled to the appellation of a workingman. "In recollecting
+similar meetings to the present," he said, "I remember my friend, John
+Pyle, rather throwing it in my teeth that I had not worked for nothing;
+but I told him, 'Mr. Pyle, you do not know what you are talking about.
+We are all workers. The man who ploughs the field and who digs the hedge
+is a worker; but there are other workers in other stations of life as
+well. For myself, I can say that I have been a worker ever since I have
+been a boy.'... Then I told him that the office of judge was by no means
+a sinecure, for that a judge worked as hard as any man in the country.
+He has to work at very difficult questions of law, which are brought
+before him continually, giving him great anxiety; and sometimes the
+lives of his fellow-creatures are placed in his hands, and are dependent
+very much upon the manner in which he places the facts before the jury.
+That is a matter of no little anxiety, I can assure you. Let any man
+think as he will, there is no man who has been through the ordeal
+for the length of time that I have, but must feel conscious of the
+importance and gravity of the duty which is cast upon a judge."]
+
+[Footnote 138: Lord Stanley's Address to the Students of Glasgow University, on his
+installation as Lord Rector, 1869.]
+
+[Footnote 139: Writing to an abbot at Nuremberg, who had sent him a store of
+turning-tools, Luther said: "I have made considerable progress in
+clockmaking, and I am very much delighted at it, for these drunken
+Saxons need to be constantly reminded of what the real time is; not that
+they themselves care much about it, for as long as their glasses are
+kept filled, they trouble themselves very little as to whether clocks,
+or clockmakers, or the time itself, go right."--Michelet's LUTHER [13Bogue
+Ed.], p. 200.]
+
+[Footnote 1310: "Life of Perthes," ii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 1311: Lockhart's 'Life of Scott' [138vo. Ed.], p. 442.]
+
+[Footnote 1312: Southey expresses the opinion in 'The Doctor', that the character
+of a person may be better known by the letters which other persons write
+to him than by what he himself writes.]
+
+[Footnote 1313: 'Dissertation on the Science of Method.']
+
+[Footnote 1314: The following passage, from a recent article in the PALL MALL
+GAZETTE, will commend itself to general aproval:--"There can be no
+question nowadays, that application to work, absorption in affairs,
+contact with men, and all the stress which business imposes on us,
+gives a noble training to the intellect, and splendid opportunity for
+discipline of character. It is an utterly low view of business which
+regards it as only a means of getting a living. A man's business is his
+part of the world's work, his share of the great activities which render
+society possible. He may like it or dislike it, but it is work, and as
+such requires application, self-denial, discipline. It is his drill, and
+he cannot be thorough in his occupation without putting himself into it,
+checking his fancies, restraining his impulses, and holding himself to
+the perpetual round of small details--without, in fact, submitting to
+his drill. But the perpetual call on a man's readiness, sell-control,
+and vigour which business makes, the constant appeal to the intellect,
+the stress upon the will, the necessity for rapid and responsible
+exercise of judgment--all these things constitute a high culture, though
+not the highest. It is a culture which strengthens and invigorates if it
+does not refine, which gives force if not polish--the FORTITER IN RE, if
+not the SUAVITER IN MODO. It makes strong men and ready men, and men of
+vast capacity for affairs, though it does not necessarily make refined
+men or gentlemen."]
+
+[Footnote 1315: On the first publication of his 'Despatches,' one of his friends
+said to him, on reading the records of his Indian campaigns: "It seems
+to me, Duke, that your chief business in India was to procure rice and
+bullocks." "And so it was," replied Wellington: "for if I had rice and
+bullocks, I had men; and if I had men, I knew I could beat the enemy."]
+
+[Footnote 1316: Maria Edgeworth, 'Memoirs of R. L. Edgeworth,' ii. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 1317: A friend of Lord Palmerston has communicated to us the following
+anecdote. Asking him one day when he considered a man to be in the prime
+of life, his immediate reply was, "Seventy-nine!" "But," he added, with
+a twinkle in his eye, "as I have just entered my eightieth year, perhaps
+I am myself a little past it."]
+
+[Footnote 1318: 'Reasons of Church Government,' Book II.]
+
+[Footnote 1319: Coleridge's advice to his young friends was much to the same
+effect. "With the exception of one extraordinary man," he says, "I have
+never known an individual, least of all an individual of genius, healthy
+or happy without a profession: i.e., some regular employment which does
+not depend on the will of the moment, and which can be carried on so
+far mechanically, that an average quantum only of health, spirits, and
+intellectual exertion are requisite to its faithful discharge. Three
+hours of leisure, unalloyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward
+to with delight as a change and recreation, will suffice to realise
+in literature a larger product of what is truly genial, than weeks
+of compulsion.... If facts are required to prove the possibility of
+combining weighty performances in literature with full and independent
+employment, the works of Cicero and Xenophon, among the ancients--of
+Sir Thomas More, Bacon, Baxter, or [13to refer at once to later and
+contemporary instances] Darwin and Roscoe, are at once decisive of the
+question."--BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA, Chap. xi.]
+
+[Footnote 1320: Mr. Ricardo published his celebrated 'Theory of Rent,' at the
+urgent recommendation of James Mill [13like his son, a chief clerk in the
+India House], author of the 'History of British India.' When the 'Theory
+of Rent' was written, Ricardo was so dissatisfied with it that he wished
+to burn it; but Mr. Mill urged him to publish it, and the book was a
+great success.]
+
+[Footnote 1321: The late Sir John Lubbock, his father, was also eminent as a
+mathematician and astronomer.]
+
+[Footnote 1322: Thales, once inveighing in discourse against the pains and care men
+put themselves to, to become rich, was answered by one in the company
+that he did like the fox, who found fault with what he could not obtain.
+Thereupon Thales had a mind, for the jest's sake, to show them the
+contrary; and having upon this occasion for once made a muster of all
+his wits, wholly to employ them in the service of profit, he set a
+traffic on foot, which in one year brought him in so great riches, that
+the most experienced in that trade could hardly in their whole lives,
+with all their industry, have raked so much together.
+--Montaignes ESSAYS, Book I., chap. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 1323: "The understanding," says Mr. Bailey, "that is accustomed to
+pursue a regular and connected train of ideas, becomes in some measure
+incapacitated for those quick and versatile movements which are learnt
+in the commerce of the world, and are indispensable to those who act a
+part in it. Deep thinking and practical talents require indeed habits of
+mind so essentially dissimilar, that while a man is striving after the
+one, he will be unavoidably in danger of losing the other." "Thence,"
+he adds, "do we so often find men, who are 'giants in the closet,' prove
+but 'children in the world.'"--'Essays on the Formation and Publication
+of Opinions,' pp.251-3.]
+
+[Footnote 1324: Mr. Gladstone is as great an enthusiast in literature as
+Canning was. It is related of him that, while he was waiting in his
+committee-room at Liverpool for the returns coming in on the day of the
+South Lancashire polling, he occupied himself in proceeding with the
+translation of a work which he was then preparing for the press.]
+
+[Footnote 141: James Russell Lowell.]
+
+[Footnote 142: Yet Bacon himself had written, "I would rather believe all the
+faiths in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this
+universal frame is without a mind."]
+
+[Footnote 143: Aubrey, in his 'Natural History of Wiltshire,' alluding to Harvey,
+says: "He told me himself that upon publishing that book he fell in his
+practice extremely."]
+
+[Footnote 144: Sir Thomas More's first wife, Jane Colt, was originally a young
+country girl, whom he himself instructed in letters, and moulded to
+his own tastes and manners. She died young, leaving a son and three
+daughters, of whom the noble Margaret Roper most resembled More himself.
+His second wife was Alice Middleton, a widow, some seven years older
+than More, not beautiful--for he characterized her as "NEC BELLA,
+NEC PUELLA"--but a shrewd worldly woman, not by any means disposed to
+sacrifice comfort and good cheer for considerations such as those which
+so powerfully influenced the mind of her husband.]
+
+[Footnote 145: Before being beheaded, Eliot said, "Death is but a little word;
+but ''tis a great work to die.'" In his 'Prison Thoughts' before his
+execution, he wrote: "He that fears not to die, fears nothing.... There
+is a time to live, and a time to die. A good death is far better and
+more eligible than an ill life. A wise man lives but so long as his life
+is worth more than his death. The longer life is not always the better."]
+
+[Footnote 146: Mr. J. S. Mill, in his book 'On Liberty,' describes "the masses," as
+"collective mediocrity." "The initiation of all wise or noble things,"
+he says, "comes, and must come, from individuals--generally at first
+from some one individual. The honour and glory of the average man is
+that he is capable of following that imitation; that he can respond
+internally to wise and noble things, and be led to them with his eyes
+open.... In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere
+refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely
+because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a
+reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that
+people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and
+where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity
+in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius,
+mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now
+dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time."--Pp. 120-1.]
+
+[Footnote 147: Mr. Arthur Helps, in one of his thoughtful books, published in 1845,
+made some observations on this point, which are not less applicable now.
+He there said: "it is a grievous thing to see literature made a vehicle
+for encouraging the enmity of class to class. Yet this, unhappily, is
+not unfrequent now. Some great man summed up the nature of French novels
+by calling them the Literature of Despair; the kind of writing that I
+deprecate may be called the Literature of Envy.... Such writers like
+to throw their influence, as they might say, into the weaker scale. But
+that is not the proper way of looking at the matter. I think, if they
+saw the ungenerous nature of their proceedings, that alone would stop
+them. They should recollect that literature may fawn upon the masses
+as well as the aristocracy; and in these days the temptation is in the
+former direction. But what is most grievous in this kind of writing is
+the mischief it may do to the working-people themselves. If you have
+their true welfare at heart, you will not only care for their being
+fed and clothed, but you will be anxious not to encourage unreasonable
+expectations in them--not to make them ungrateful or greedy-minded.
+Above all, you will be solicitous to preserve some self-reliance in
+them. You will be careful not to let them think that their condition can
+be wholly changed without exertion of their own. You would not desire to
+have it so changed. Once elevate your ideal of what you wish to happen
+amongst the labouring population, and you will not easily admit anything
+in your writings that may injure their moral or their mental character,
+even if you thought it might hasten some physical benefit for them. That
+is the way to make your genius most serviceable to mankind. Depend upon
+it, honest and bold things require to be said to the lower as well as
+the higher classes; and the former are in these times much less likely
+to have, such things addressed to them."-Claims of Labour, pp. 253-4.]
+
+[Footnote 148: 'Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson' [14Bohn's Ed.], p. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 149: At a public meeting held at Worcester, in 1867, in recognition of
+Sir J. Pakington's services as Chairman of Quarter Sessions for a period
+of twenty-four years, the following remarks, made by Sir John on the
+occasion, are just and valuable as they are modest:-"I am indebted for
+whatever measure of success I have attained in my public life, to a
+combination of moderate abilities, with honesty of intention, firmness
+of purpose, and steadiness of conduct. If I were to offer advice to any
+young man anxious to make himself useful in public life, I would sum up
+the results of my experience in three short rules--rules so simple that
+any man may understand them, and so easy that any man may act upon them.
+My first rule would be--leave it to others to judge of what duties you
+are capable, and for what position you are fitted; but never refuse to
+give your services in whatever capacity it may be the opinion of others
+who are competent to judge that you may benefit your neighbours or your
+country. My second rule is--when you agree to undertake public duties,
+concentrate every energy and faculty in your possession with the
+determination to discharge those duties to the best of your ability.
+Lastly, I would counsel you that, in deciding on the line which you will
+take in public affairs, you should be guided in your decision by that
+which, after mature deliberation, you believe to be right, and not
+by that which, in the passing hour, may happen to be fashionable or
+popular."]
+
+[Footnote 1410: The following illustration of one of his minute acts of kindness is
+given in his biography:--"He was one day taking a long country walk near
+Freshford, when he met a little girl, about five years old, sobbing over
+a broken bowl; she had dropped and broken it in bringing it back from
+the field to which she had taken her father's dinner in it, and she said
+she would be beaten on her return home for having broken it; when, with
+a sudden gleam of hope, she innocently looked up into his face, and
+said, 'But yee can mend it, can't ee?'
+
+"My father explained that he could not mend the bowl, but the trouble he
+could, by the gift of a sixpence to buy another. However, on opening his
+purse it was empty of silver, and he had to make amends by promising to
+meet his little friend in the same spot at the same hour next day, and
+to bring the sixpence with him, bidding her, meanwhile, tell her mother
+she had seen a gentleman who would bring her the money for the bowl next
+day. The child, entirely trusting him, went on her way comforted. On
+his return home he found an invitation awaiting him to dine in Bath the
+following evening, to meet some one whom he specially wished to see. He
+hesitated for some little time, trying to calculate the possibility of
+giving the meeting to his little friend of the broken bowl and of still
+being in time for the dinner-party in Bath; but finding this could
+not be, he wrote to decline accepting the invitation on the plea of 'a
+pre-engagement,' saying to us, 'I cannot disappoint her, she trusted me
+so implicitly.'"]
+
+[Footnote 1411: Miss Florence Nightingale has related the following incident as
+having occurred before Sebastopol:--"I remember a sergeant who, on
+picket, the rest of the picket killed and himself battered about the
+head, stumbled back to camp, and on his way picked up a wounded man
+and brought him in on his shoulders to the lines, where he fell down
+insensible. When, after many hours, he recovered his senses, I believe
+after trepanning, his first words were to ask after his comrade, 'Is he
+alive?' 'Comrade, indeed; yes, he's alive--it is the general.' At that
+moment the general, though badly wounded, appeared at the bedside. 'Oh,
+general, it's you, is it, I brought in? I'm so glad; I didn't know your
+honour. But, ----, if I'd known it was you, I'd have saved you all the
+same.' This is the true soldier's spirit."
+
+In the same letter, Miss Nightingale says: "England, from her grand
+mercantile and commercial successes, has been called sordid; God knows
+she is not. The simple courage, the enduring patience, the good sense,
+the strength to suffer in silence--what nation shows more of this in
+war than is shown by her commonest soldier? I have seen men dying of
+dysentery, but scorning to report themselves sick lest they should
+thereby throw more labour on their comrades, go down to the trenches and
+make the trenches their deathbed. There is nothing in history to compare
+with it...."]
+
+"Say what men will, there is something more truly Christian in the man
+who gives his time, his strength, his life, if need be, for something
+not himself--whether he call it his Queen, his country, or his
+colours--than in all the asceticism, the fasts, the humiliations, and
+confessions which have ever been made: and this spirit of giving one's
+life, without calling it a sacrifice, is found nowhere so truly as in
+England."]
+
+[Footnote 1412: Mrs. Grote's 'Life of Ary Scheffer,' pp. 154-5.]
+
+[Footnote 1413: The sufferings of this noble woman, together with those of her
+unfortunate husband, were touchingly described in a letter afterwards
+addressed by her to a female friend, which was published some years ago
+at Haarlem, entitled, 'Gertrude von der Wart; or, Fidelity unto Death.'
+Mrs. Hemans wrote a poem of great pathos and beauty, commemorating the
+sad story in her 'Records of Woman.']
+
+[Footnote 151: 'Social Statics,' p. 185.]
+
+[Footnote 152: "In all cases," says Jeremy Bentham, "when the power of the will can
+be exercised over the thoughts, let those thoughts be directed towards
+happiness. Look out for the bright, for the brightest side of things,
+and keep your face constantly turned to it.... A large part of existence
+is necessarily passed in inaction. By day [15to take an instance from the
+thousand in constant recurrence], when in attendance on others, and time
+is lost by being kept waiting; by night when sleep is unwilling to
+close the eyelids, the economy of happiness recommends the occupation of
+pleasurable thought. In walking abroad, or in resting at home, the mind
+cannot be vacant; its thoughts may be useful, useless, or pernicious to
+happiness. Direct them aright; the habit of happy thought will spring up
+like any other habit." DEONTOLOGY, ii. 105-6.]
+
+[Footnote 153: The following extract from a letter of M. Boyd, Esq., is given by
+Earl Stanhope in his 'Miscellanies':--"There was a circumstance told me
+by the late Mr. Christmas, who for many years held an important official
+situation in the Bank of England. He was, I believe, in early life a
+clerk in the Treasury, or one of the government offices, and for some
+time acted for Mr. Pitt as his confidential clerk, or temporary private
+secretary. Christmas was one of the most obliging men I ever knew; and,
+from the, position he occupied, was constantly exposed to interruptions,
+yet I never saw his temper in the least ruffled. One day I found him
+more than usually engaged, having a mass of accounts to prepare for one
+of the law-courts--still the same equanimity, and I could not resist the
+opportunity of asking the old gentleman the secret. 'Well, Mr. Boyd,
+you shall know it. Mr. Pitt gave it to me:--NOT TO LOSE MY TEMPER,
+IF POSSIBLE, AT ANY TIME, AND NEVER DURING THE HOURS OF BUSINESS. My
+labours here [15Bank of England] commence at nine and end at three; and,
+acting on the advice of the illustrious statesman, I NEVER LOSE MY
+TEMPER DURING THOSE HOURS.'"]
+
+[Footnote 154: 'Strafford Papers,' i. 87.]
+
+[Footnote 155: Jared Sparks' 'Life of Washington,' pp. 7, 534.]
+
+[Footnote 156: Brialmont's 'Life of Wellington.']
+
+[Footnote 157: Professor Tyndall, on 'Faraday as a Discoverer,' p. 156.]
+
+[Footnote 158: 'Life of Perthes,' ii. 216.]
+
+[Footnote 159: Lady Elizabeth Carew.]
+
+[Footnote 1510: Francis Horner, in one of his letters, says: "It is among the
+very sincere and zealous friends of liberty that you will find the most
+perfect specimens of wrongheadedness; men of a dissenting, provincial
+cast of virtue--who [15according to one of Sharpe's favourite phrases]
+WILL drive a wedge the broad end foremost--utter strangers to all
+moderation in political business."--Francis Horner's LIFE AND
+CORRESPONDENCE [151843], ii. 133.]
+
+[Footnote 1511: Professor Tyndall on 'Faraday as a Discoverer,' pp. 40-1.]
+
+[Footnote 1512: Yet Burke himself; though capable of giving Barry such excellent
+advice, was by no means immaculate as regarded his own temper. When
+he lay ill at Beaconsfield, Fox, from whom he had become separated by
+political differences arising out of the French Revolution, went down
+to see his old friend. But Burke would not grant him an interview;
+he positively refused to see him. On his return to town, Fox told his
+friend Coke the result of his journey; and when Coke lamented Burke's
+obstinacy, Fox only replied, goodnaturedly: "Ah! never mind, Tom; I
+always find every Irishman has got a piece of potato in his head."
+Yet Fox, with his usual generosity, when he heard of Burke's impending
+death, wrote a most kind and cordial letter to Mrs. Burke, expressive of
+his grief and sympathy; and when Burke was no more, Fox was the first
+to propose that he should be interred with public honours in Westminster
+Abbey--which only Burke's own express wish, that he should be buried at
+Beaconsfield, prevented being carried out.]
+
+[Footnote 1513: When Curran, the Irish barrister, visited Burns's cabin in 1810, he
+found it converted into a public house, and the landlord who showed it
+was drunk. "There," said he, pointing to a corner on one side of the
+fire, with a most MALAPROPOS laugh-"there is the very spot where Robert
+Burns was born." "The genius and the fate of the man," says Curran,
+"were already heavy on my heart; but the drunken laugh of the landlord
+gave me such a view of the rock on which he had foundered, that I could
+not stand it, but burst into tears."]
+
+[Footnote 1514: The chaplain of Horsemongerlane Gaol, in his annual report to the
+Surrey justices, thus states the result of his careful study of the
+causes of dishonesty: "From my experience of predatory crime, founded
+upon careful study of the character of a great variety of prisoners,
+I conclude that habitual dishonesty is to be referred neither to
+ignorance, nor to drunkenness, nor to poverty, nor to overcrowding in
+towns, nor to temptation from surrounding wealth--nor, indeed, to any
+one of the many indirect causes to which it is sometimes referred--but
+mainly TO A DISPOSITION TO ACQUIRE PROPERTY WITH A LESS DEGREE OF LABOUR
+THAN ORDINARY INDUSTRY." The italics are the author's.]
+
+[Footnote 1515: S. C. Hall's 'Memories.']
+
+[Footnote 1516: Moore's 'Life of Byron,' 8vo. Ed., p. 182.]
+
+[Footnote 1517: Captain Basil Hall records the following conversation with
+Scott:-"It occurs to me," I observed, "that people are apt to make too
+much fuss about the loss of fortune, which is one of the smallest of the
+great evils of life, and ought to be among the most tolerable."--"Do you
+call it a small misfortune to be ruined in money-matters?" he asked.
+"It is not so painful, at all events, as the loss of friends."--"I grant
+that," he said. "As the loss of character?"--"True again." "As the loss
+of health?"--"Ay, there you have me," he muttered to himself, in a
+tone so melancholy that I wished I had not spoken. "What is the loss of
+fortune to the loss of peace of mind?" I continued. "In short," said he,
+playfully, "you will make it out that there is no harm in a man's being
+plunged over-head-and-ears in a debt he cannot remove." "Much depends,
+I think, on how it was incurred, and what efforts are made to redeem
+it--at least, if the sufferer be a rightminded man." "I hope it does,"
+he said, cheerfully and firmly.--FRAGMENTS OF VOYAGES AND TRAVELS, 3rd
+series, pp. 308-9.]
+
+[Footnote 1518: "These battles," he wrote in his Diary, "have been the death of
+many a man, I think they will be mine."]
+
+[Footnote 1519: Scott's Diary, December 17th, 1827.]
+
+[Footnote 161: From Lovelace's lines to Lucusta [16Lucy Sacheverell], 'Going to the
+Wars.']
+
+[Footnote 162: Amongst other great men of genius, Ariosto and Michael Angelo
+devoted to her their service and their muse.]
+
+[Footnote 163: See the Rev. F. W. Farrar's admirable book, entitled 'Seekers after
+God' [16Sunday Library]. The author there says: "Epictetus was not a
+Christian. He has only once alluded to the Christians in his works, and
+then it is under the opprobrious title of 'Galileans,' who practised a
+kind of insensibility in painful circumstances, and an indifference to
+worldly interests, which Epictetus unjustly sets down to 'mere habit.'
+Unhappily, it was not granted to these heathen philosophers in any true
+sense to know what Christianity was. They thought that it was an attempt
+to imitate the results of philosophy, without having passed through the
+necessary discipline. They viewed it with suspicion, they treated it
+with injustice. And yet in Christianity, and in Christianity alone,
+they would have found an ideal which would have surpassed their loftiest
+anticipations."]
+
+[Footnote 164: Sparks' 'Life of Washington,' pp. 141-2.]
+
+[Footnote 165: Wellington, like Washington, had to pay the penalty of his adherence
+to the cause he thought right, in his loss of "popularity." He was
+mobbed in the streets of London, and had his windows smashed by the mob,
+while his wife lay dead in the house. Sir Walter Scott also was hooted
+and pelted at Hawick by "the people," amidst cries of "Burke Sir
+Walter!"]
+
+[Footnote 166: Robertson's 'Life and Letters,' ii. 157.]
+
+[Footnote 167: We select the following passages from this remarkable report of
+Baron Stoffel, as being of more than merely temporary interest:--Who
+that has lived here [16Berlin] will deny that the Prussians are energetic,
+patriotic, and teeming with youthful vigour; that they are not corrupted
+by sensual pleasures, but are manly, have earnest convictions, do not
+think it beneath them to reverence sincerely what is noble and lofty?
+What a melancholy contrast does France offer in all this? Having sneered
+at everything, she has lost the faculty of respecting anything.
+Virtue, family life, patriotism, honour, religion, are represented to a
+frivolous generation as fitting subjects of ridicule. The theatres have
+become schools of shamelessness and obscenity. Drop by drop, poison is
+instilled into the very core of an ignorant and enervated society, which
+has neither the insight nor the energy left to amend its institutions,
+nor--which would be the most necessary step to take--become better
+informed or more moral. One after the other the fine qualities of the
+nation are dying out. Where is the generosity, the loyalty, the charm of
+our ESPRIT, and our former elevation of soul? If this goes on, the
+time will come when this noble race of France will be known only by its
+faults. And France has no idea that while she is sinking, more earnest
+nations are stealing the march upon her, are distancing her on the
+road to progress, and are preparing for her a secondary position in the
+world.
+
+"I am afraid that these opinions will not be relished in France. However
+correct, they differ too much from what is usually said and asserted at
+home. I should wish some enlightened and unprejudiced Frenchmen to come
+to Prussia and make this country their study. They would soon discover
+that they were living in the midst of a strong, earnest, and intelligent
+nation, entirely destitute, it is true, of noble and delicate feelings,
+of all fascinating charms, but endowed with every solid virtue, and
+alike distinguished for untiring industry, order, and economy, as well
+as for patriotism, a strong sense of duty, and that consciousness of
+personal dignity which in their case is so happily blended with respect
+for authority and obedience to the law. They would see a country with
+firm, sound, and moral institutions, whose upper classes are worthy of
+their rank, and, by possessing the highest degree of culture,
+devoting themselves to the service of the State, setting an example of
+patriotism, and knowing how to preserve the influence legitimately their
+own. They would find a State with an excellent administration where
+everything is in its right place, and where the most admirable order
+prevails in every branch of the social and political system. Prussia
+may be well compared to a massive structure of lofty proportions and
+astounding solidity, which, though it has nothing to delight the eye
+or speak to the heart, cannot but impress us with its grand symmetry,
+equally observable in its broad foundations as in its strong and
+sheltering roof.
+
+"And what is France? What is French society in these latter days? A
+hurly-burly of disorderly elements, all mixed and jumbled together; a
+country in which everybody claims the right to occupy the highest posts,
+yet few remember that a man to be employed in a responsible position
+ought to have a well-balanced mind, ought to be strictly moral, to
+know something of the world, and possess certain intellectual powers; a
+country in which the highest offices are frequently held by ignorant and
+uneducated persons, who either boast some special talent, or whose
+only claim is social position and some versatility and address. What a
+baneful and degrading state of things! And how natural that, while it
+lasts, France should be full of a people without a position, without a
+calling, who do not know what to do with themselves, but are none the
+less eager to envy and malign every one who does....
+
+"The French do not possess in any very marked degree the qualities
+required to render general conscription acceptable, or to turn it to
+account. Conceited and egotistic as they are, the people would object
+to an innovation whose invigorating force they are unable to comprehend,
+and which cannot be carried out without virtues which they do not
+possess--self-abnegation, conscientious recognition of duty, and a
+willingness to sacrifice personal interests to the loftier demands
+of the country. As the character of individuals is only improved by
+experience, most nations require a chastisement before they set about
+reorganising their political institutions. So Prussia wanted a Jena to
+make her the strong and healthy country she is."]
+
+[Footnote 168: Yet even in De Tocqueville's benevolent nature, there was a
+pervading element of impatience. In the very letter in which the above
+passage occurs, he says: "Some persons try to be of use to men while
+they despise them, and others because they love them. In the services
+rendered by the first, there is always something incomplete, rough, and
+contemptuous, that inspires neither confidence nor gratitude. I should
+like to belong to the second class, but often I cannot. I love mankind
+in general, but I constantly meet with individuals whose baseness
+revolts me. I struggle daily against a universal contempt for my fellow,
+creatures."--MEMOIRS AND REMAINS OF DE TOCQUEVILLE, vol. i. p. 813.
+[Footnote 16Letter to Kergorlay, Nov. 13th, 1833].]
+
+[Footnote 169: Gleig's 'Life of Wellington,' pp. 314, 315.]
+
+[Footnote 1610: 'Life of Arnold,' i. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 1611: See the 'Memoir of George Wilson, M.D., F.R.S.E.' By his sister
+[Footnote 16Edinburgh, 1860].]
+
+[Footnote 1612: Such cases are not unusual. We personally knew a young lady, a
+countrywoman of Professor Wilson, afflicted by cancer in the breast,
+who concealed the disease from her parents lest it should occasion them
+distress. An operation became necessary; and when the surgeons called
+for the purpose of performing it, she herself answered the door,
+received them with a cheerful countenance, led them upstairs to her
+room, and submitted to the knife; and her parents knew nothing of the
+operation until it was all over. But the disease had become too deeply
+seated for recovery, and the noble self-denying girl died, cheerful and
+uncomplaining to the end.
+
+[Footnote 1613: "One night, about eleven o'clock, Keats returned home in a state
+of strange physical excitement--it might have appeared, to those who did
+not know him, one of fierce intoxication. He told his friend he had
+been outside the stage-coach, had received a severe chill, was a little
+fevered, but added, 'I don't feel it now.' He was easily persuaded to go
+to bed, and as he leapt into the cold sheets, before his head was on
+the pillow, he slightly coughed and said, 'That is blood from my mouth;
+bring me the candle; let me see this blood' He gazed steadfastly for
+some moments at the ruddy stain, and then, looking in his friend's face
+with an expression of sudden calmness never to be forgotten, said,
+'I know the colour of that blood--it is arterial blood. I cannot
+be deceived in that colour; that drop is my death-warrant. I must
+die!'"--Houghton's LIFE OF KEATS, Ed. 1867, p. 289.
+
+In the case of George Wilson, the bleeding was in the first instance
+from the stomach, though he afterwards suffered from lung haemorrhage
+like Keats. Wilson afterwards, speaking of the Lives of Lamb and Keats,
+which had just appeared, said he had been reading them with great
+sadness. "There is," said he, "something in the noble brotherly love of
+Charles to brighten, and hallow, and relieve that sadness; but Keats's
+deathbed is the blackness of midnight, unmitigated by one ray of light!"]
+
+[Footnote 1614: On the doctors, who attended him in his first attack, mistaking the
+haemorrhage from the stomach for haemorrhage from the lungs, he wrote:
+"It would have been but poor consolation to have had as an epitaph:--
+
+      "Here lies George Wilson,
+        Overtaken by Nemesis;
+      He died not of Haemoptysis,
+        But of Haematemesis."]
+
+[Footnote 1615: 'Memoir,' p. 427.]
+
+[Footnote 171: Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living.']
+
+[Footnote 172: 'Michelet's 'Life of Luther,' pp. 411-12.]
+
+[Footnote 173: Sir John Kaye's 'Lives of Indian Officers.']
+
+[Footnote 174: 'Deontology,' pp. 130-1, 144.]
+
+[Footnote 175: 'Letters and Essays,' p. 67.]
+
+[Footnote 176: 'Beauties of St. Francis de Sales.']
+
+[Footnote 177: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 178: 'Life of Perthes,' ii. 449.]
+
+[Footnote 179: Moore's 'Life of Byron,' 8vo. Ed., p. 483.]
+
+[Footnote 181: Locke thought it of greater importance that an educator of youth
+should be well-bred and well-tempered, than that he should be either a
+thorough classicist or man of science. Writing to Lord Peterborough on
+his son's education, Locke said: "Your Lordship would have your son's
+tutor a thorough scholar, and I think it not much matter whether he be
+any scholar or no: if he but understand Latin well, and have a general
+scheme of the sciences, I think that enough. But I would have him
+WELL-BRED and WELL-TEMPERED."]
+
+[Footnote 182: Mrs. Hutchinson's 'Memoir of the Life of Lieut.-Colonel Hutchinson,'
+p. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 183: 'Letters and Essays,' p. 59.]
+
+[Footnote 184: 'Lettres d'un Voyageur.']
+
+[Footnote 185: Sir Henry Taylor's 'Statesman,' p. 59.]
+
+[Footnote 186: Introduction to the 'Principal Speeches and Addresses of His Royal
+Highness the Prince Consort,' 1862.]
+
+[Footnote 187:
+
+    "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
+       I all alone beween my outcast state,
+    And troubled deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
+       And look upon myself and curse my fate;
+    WISHING ME LIKE TO ONE MORE RICH IN HOPE,
+       Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
+    Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
+       With what I most enjoy, contented least;
+    Yet in these thoughts, MYSELF ALMOST DESPISING,
+       Haply I think on thee," &c.--SONNET XXIX.
+
+    "So I, MADE LAME by sorrow's dearest spite," &c.--SONNET XXXVI]
+
+[Footnote 188: "And strength, by LIMPING sway disabled," &c.--SONNET LXVI.
+
+    "Speak of MY LAMENESS, and I straight will halt."--SONNET LXXXIX.]
+
+[Footnote 189:
+
+     "Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
+       And MADE MYSELF A MOTLEY TO THE VIEW,
+     Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
+       Made old offences of affections new," &c.--SONNET CX.
+
+     "Oh, for my sake do you with fortune chide!
+       The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
+     That did not better for my life provide,
+       THAN PUBLIC MEANS, WHICH PUBLIC MANNERS BREED;
+     Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
+       And almost thence my nature is subdued,
+     To what it works in like the dyer's hand," &c.--SONNET CXI.]
+
+[Footnote 1810:
+
+     "In our two loves there is but one respect,
+         Though in our loves a separable spite,
+     Which though it alter not loves sole effect;
+        Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight,
+     I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
+        Lest MY BEWAILED GUILT SHOULD DO THEE SHAME."--SONNET XXXVI.]
+
+[Footnote 1811: It is related of Garrick, that when subpoenaed on Baretti's trial,
+and required to give his evidence before the court--though he had been
+accustomed for thirty years to act with the greatest self-possession in
+the presence of thousands--he became so perplexed and confused, that he
+was actually sent from the witness-box by the judge, as a man from whom
+no evidence could be obtained.]
+
+[Footnote 1812: Mrs. Mathews' 'Life and Correspondence of Charles Mathews,' [18Ed.
+1860: p. 232.]
+
+[Footnote 1813: Archbishop Whately's 'Commonplace Book.']
+
+[Footnote 1814: Emerson is said to have had Nathaniel Hawthorne in his mind when
+writing the following passage in his 'Society and Solitude:'--"The most
+agreeable compliment you could pay him was, to imply that you had not
+observed him in a house or a street where you had met him. Whilst
+he suffered at being seen where he was, he consoled himself with the
+delicious thought of the inconceivable number of places where he was
+not. All he wished of his tailor was to provide that sober mean of
+colour and cut which would never detain the eye for a moment.... He
+had a remorse, running to despair, of his social GAUCHERIES, and walked
+miles and miles to get the twitchings out of his face, and the starts
+and shrugs out of his arms and shoulders. 'God may forgive sins,' he
+said, 'but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.'"]
+
+[Footnote 1815: In a series of clever articles in the REVUE DES DEUX MONDES,
+entitled, 'Six mille Lieues a toute Vapeur,' giving a description of his
+travels in North America, Maurice Sand keenly observed the comparatively
+anti-social proclivities of the American compared with the Frenchman.
+The one, he says, is inspired by the spirit of individuality, the other
+by the spirit of society. In America he sees the individual absorbing
+society; as in France he sees society absorbing the individual. "Ce
+peuple Anglo-Saxon," he says, "qui trouvait devant lui la terre,
+l'instrument de travail, sinon inepuisable, du mons inepuise, s'est mis
+a l'exploiter sous l'inspiration de l'egoisme; et nous autres Francais,
+nous n'avons rien su en faire, parceque NOUS NE POUVONS RIEN DANS
+L'ISOLEMENT.... L'Americain supporte la solitude avec un stoicisme
+admirable, mais effrayant; il ne l'aime pas, il ne songe qu'a la
+detruire.... Le Francais est tout autre. Il aime son parent, son ami,
+son compagnon, et jusqu'a son voisin d'omnibus ou de theatre, si sa
+figure lui est sympathetique. Pourquoi? Parce qu'il le regarde et
+cherche son ame, parce qu'il vit dans son semblable autant qu'en
+lui-meme. Quand il est longtemps seul, il deperit, et quand il est
+toujours seul, it meurt."]
+
+All this is perfectly true, and it explains why the comparatively
+unsociable Germans, English, and Americans, are spreading over the
+earth, while the intensely sociable Frenchmen, unable to enjoy life
+without each other's society, prefer to stay at home, and France fails
+to extend itself beyond France.]
+
+
+[Footnote 1816: The Irish have, in many respects, the same strong social instincts
+as the French. In the United States they cluster naturally in the towns,
+where they have their "Irish Quarters," as in England. They are even
+more Irish there than at home, and can no more forget that they are
+Irishmen than the French can that they are Frenchmen. "I deliberately
+assert," says Mr. Maguire, in his recent work on 'The Irish in America,'
+"that it is not within the power of language to describe adequately,
+much less to exaggerate, the evils consequent on the unhappy tendency
+of the Irish to congregate in the large towns of America." It is this
+intense socialism of the Irish that keeps them in a comparatively
+hand-to-mouth condition in all the States of the Union.]
+
+[Footnote 1817: 'The Statesman,' p. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 1818: Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his 'First Impressions of France and
+Italy,' says his opinion of the uncleanly character of the modern Romans
+is so unfavourable that he hardly knows how to express it "But the
+fact is that through the Forum, and everywhere out of the commonest
+foot-track and roadway, you must look well to your steps.... Perhaps
+there is something in the minds of the people of these countries that
+enables them to dissever small ugliness from great sublimity and beauty.
+They spit upon the glorious pavement of St. Peter's, and wherever else
+they like; they place paltry-looking wooden confessionals beneath its
+sublime arches, and ornament them with cheap little coloured prints of
+the Crucifixion; they hang tin hearts, and other tinsel and trumpery, at
+the gorgeous shrines of the saints, in chapels that are encrusted with
+gems, or marbles almost as precious; they put pasteboard statues of
+saints beneath the dome of the Pantheon;--in short, they let the
+sublime and the ridiculous come close together, and are not in the least
+troubled by the proximity."]
+
+[Footnote 1819: Edwin Chadwick's 'Address to the Economic Science and Statistic
+Section,' British Association [18Meeting, 1862].]
+
+[Footnote 191: 'Kaye's 'Lives of Indian Officers.']
+
+[Footnote 192: Emerson, in his 'Society and Solitude,' says "In contemporaries, it
+is not so easy to distinguish between notoriety and fame. Be sure, then,
+to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press or the gossip of the
+hour.... The three practical rules I have to offer are these:--1. Never
+read a book that is not a year old; 2. Never read any but famed books;
+3. Never read any but what you like." Lord Lytton's maxim is: "In
+science, read by preference the newest books; in literature, the
+oldest."]
+
+[Footnote 193: A friend of Sir Walter Scott, who had the same habit, and prided
+himself on his powers of conversation, one day tried to "draw out" a
+fellow-passenger who sat beside him on the outside of a coach, but
+with indifferent success. At length the conversationalist descended to
+expostulation. "I have talked to you, my friend," said he, "on all the
+ordinary subjects--literature, farming, merchandise, gaming, game-laws,
+horse-races, suits at law, politics, and swindling, and blasphemy, and
+philosophy: is there any one subject that you will favour me by opening
+upon?" The wight writhed his countenance into a grin: "Sir," said he,
+"can you say anything clever about BEND-LEATHER?" As might be expected,
+the conversationalist was completely nonplussed.]
+
+[Footnote 194: Coleridge, in his 'Lay Sermon,' points out, as a fact of history,
+how large a part of our present knowledge and civilization is owing,
+directly or indirectly, to the Bible; that the Bible has been the main
+lever by which the moral and intellectual character of Europe has been
+raised to its present comparative height; and he specifies the marked
+and prominent difference of this book from the works which it is the
+fashion to quote as guides and authorities in morals, politics, and
+history. "In the Bible," he says, "every agent appears and acts as a
+self-substituting individual: each has a life of its own, and yet all
+are in life. The elements of necessity and freewill are reconciled in
+the higher power of an omnipresent Providence, that predestinates the
+whole in the moral freedom of the integral parts. Of this the Bible
+never suffers us to lose sight. The root is never detached from
+the ground, it is God everywhere; and all creatures conform to His
+decrees--the righteous by performance of the law, the disobedient by the
+sufferance of the penalty."]
+
+[Footnote 195: Montaigne's Essay [19Book I. chap. xxv.]--'Of the Education of
+Children.']
+
+[Footnote 196: "Tant il est vrai," says Voltaire, "que les hommes, qui sont
+audessus des autres par les talents, s'en RAPPROCHENT PRESQUE TOUJOURS
+PAR LES FAIBLESSES; car pourquoi les talents nous mettraient-ils
+audessous de l'humanite."--VIE DE MOLIERE.]
+
+[Footnote 197: 'Life,' 8vo Ed., p. 102.]
+
+[Footnote 198: 'Autobiography of Sir Egerton Brydges, Bart.,' vol. i. p. 91.]
+
+[Footnote 199: It was wanting in Plutarch, in Southey [19'Life of Nelson'], and in
+Forster [19'Life of Goldsmith']; yet it must be acknowledged that personal
+knowledge gives the principal charm to Tacitus's 'Agricola,' Roper's
+'Life of More,' Johnson's 'Lives of Savage and Pope,' Boswell's
+'Johnson,' Lockhart's 'Scott,' Carlyle's 'Sterling,' and Moore's
+'Byron,']
+
+[Footnote 1910: The 'Dialogus Novitiorum de Contemptu Mundi.']
+
+[Footnote 1911: The Life of Sir Charles Bell, one of our greatest physiologists,
+was left to be written by Amedee Pichot, a Frenchman; and though Sir
+Charles Bell's letters to his brother have since been published, his
+Life still remains to be written. It may also be added that the best
+Life of Goethe has been written by an Englishman, and the best Life of
+Frederick the Great by a Scotchman.]
+
+[Footnote 1912: It is not a little remarkable that the pious Schleiermacher should
+have concurred in opinion with Goethe as to the merits of Spinoza,
+though he was a man excommunicated by the Jews, to whom he belonged, and
+denounced by the Christians as a man little better than an atheist. "The
+Great Spirit of the world," says Schleiermacher, in his REDE UBER DIE
+RELIGION, "penetrated the holy but repudiated Spinoza; the Infinite was
+his beginning and his end; the universe his only and eternal love. He
+was filled with religion and religious feeling: and therefore is it
+that he stands alone unapproachable, the master in his art, but
+elevated above the profane world, without adherents, and without even
+citizenship."]
+
+Cousin also says of Spinoza:--"The author whom this pretended atheist
+most resembles is the unknown author of 'The Imitation of Jesus
+Christ.'"]
+
+[Footnote 1913: Preface to Southeys 'Life of Wesley' [191864].]
+
+[Footnote 1914: Napoleon also read Milton carefully, and it has been related of
+him by Sir Colin Campbell, who resided with Napoleon at Elba, that
+when speaking of the Battle of Austerlitz, he said that a particular
+disposition of his artillery, which, in its results, had a decisive
+effect in winning the battle, was suggested to his mind by the
+recollection of four lines in Milton. The lines occur in the sixth book,
+and are descriptive of Satan's artifice during the war with Heaven.
+
+                "In hollow cube
+       Training his devilish engin'ry, impal'd
+       On every side WITH SHADOWING SQUADRONS DEEP
+       TO HIDE THE FRAUD."
+
+"The indubitable fact," says Mr. Edwards, in his book 'On Libraries,'
+"that these lines have a certain appositeness to an important manoeuvre
+at Austerlitz, gives an independent interest to the story; but it is
+highly imaginative to ascribe the victory to that manoeuvre. And for
+the other preliminaries of the tale, it is unfortunate that Napoleon had
+learned a good deal about war long before he had learned anything about
+Milton."]
+
+[Footnote 1915: 'Biographia Literaria,' chap. i.]
+
+[Footnote 1916: Sir John Bowring's 'Memoirs of Bentham,' p. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 1917: Notwithstanding recent censures of classical studies as a useless
+waste of time, there can be no doubt that they give the highest
+finish to intellectual culture. The ancient classics contain the most
+consummate models of literary art; and the greatest writers have been
+their most diligent students. Classical culture was the instrument with
+which Erasmus and the Reformers purified Europe. It distinguished
+the great patriots of the seventeenth century; and it has ever since
+characterised our greatest statesmen. "I know not how it is," says an
+English writer, "but their commerce with the ancients appears to me to
+produce, in those who constantly practise it, a steadying and composing
+effect upon their judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and
+events in general. They are like persons who have had a weighty and
+impressive experience; they are more truly than others under the empire
+of facts, and more independent of the language current among those with
+whom they live."]
+
+[Footnote 1918: Hazlitt's TABLE TALK: 'On Thought and Action.']
+
+[Footnote 201: Mungo Park declared that he was more affected by this incident than
+by any other that befel him in the course of his travels. As he lay
+down to sleep on the mat spread for him on the floor of the hut, his
+benefactress called to the female part of the family to resume their
+task of spinning cotton, in which they continued employed far into the
+night. "They lightened their labour with songs," says the traveller,
+"one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of
+it; it was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a chorus.
+The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated,
+were these: 'The winds roared, and the rains fell. The poor white man,
+faint and weary, came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring
+him milk, no wife to grind his corn.' Chorus--'Let us pity the white
+man, no mother has he!' Trifling as this recital may appear, to a person
+in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I
+was so oppressed by such unexpected kindness, that sleep fled before my
+eyes."]
+
+[Footnote 202: 'Transformation, or Monte Beni.']
+
+[Footnote 203: 'Portraits Contemporains,' iii. 519.]
+
+[Footnote 204: Mr. Arthur Helps, in one of his Essays, has wisely said: "You
+observe a man becoming day by day richer, or advancing in station,
+or increasing in professional reputation, and you set him down as a
+successful man in life. But if his home is an ill-regulated one,
+where no links of affection extend throughout the family--whose former
+domestics [20and he has had more of them than he can well remember] look
+back upon their sojourn with him as one unblessed by kind words or
+deeds--I contend that that man has not been successful. Whatever good
+fortune he may have in the world, it is to be remembered that he has
+always left one important fortress untaken behind him. That man's life
+does not surely read well whose benevolence has found no central home.
+It may have sent forth rays in various directions, but there should have
+been a warm focus of love--that home-nest which is formed round a good
+mans heart."--CLAIMS OF LABOUR.]
+
+[Footnote 205: "The red heart sends all its instincts up to the white brain, to be
+analysed, chilled, blanched, and so become pure reason--which is just
+exactly what we do NOT want of women as women. The current should run
+the other way. The nice, calm, cold thought, which, in women, shapes
+itself so rapidly that they hardly know it as thought, should always
+travel to the lips VIA the heart. It does so in those women whom
+all love and admire.... The brain-women never interest us like the
+heart-women; white roses please less than red."--THE PROFESSOR AT THE
+BREAKFAST TABLE, by Oliver Wendell Holmes.]
+
+[Footnote 206: 'The War and General Culture,' 1871.]
+
+[Footnote 207: "Depend upon it, men set more value on the cultivated minds than on
+the accomplishments of women, which they are rarely able to appreciate.
+It is a common error, but it is an error, that literature unfits women
+for the everyday business of life. It is not so with men. You see
+those of the most cultivated minds constantly devoting their time and
+attention to the most homely objects. Literature gives women a real
+and proper weight in society, but then they must use it with
+discretion."--THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.]
+
+[Footnote 208: 'The Statesman,' pp. 73-75.]
+
+[Footnote 209: Fuller, the Church historian, with his usual homely mother-wit,
+speaking of the choice of a wife, said briefly, "Take the daughter of a
+good mother."]
+
+[Footnote 2010: She was an Englishwoman--a Miss Motley. It maybe mentioned that
+amongst other distinguished Frenchmen who have married English wives,
+were Sismondi, Alfred de Vigny, and Lamartine.]
+
+[Footnote 2011: "Plus je roule dans ce monde, et plus je suis amene a penser qu'il
+n'y a que le bonheur domestique qui signifie quelque chose."--OEUVRES ET
+CORRESPONDENCE.]
+
+[Footnote 2012: De Tocqueville's 'Memoir and Remains,' vol. i. p. 408.]
+
+[Footnote 2013: De Tocqueville's 'Memoir and Remains,' vol. ii. p. 48.]
+
+[Footnote 2014: Colonel Hutchinson was an uncompromising republican, thoroughly
+brave, highminded, and pious. At the Restoration, he was discharged from
+Parliament, and from all offices of state for ever. He retired to his
+estate at Owthorp, near Nottingham, but was shortly after arrested and
+imprisoned in the Tower. From thence he was removed to Sandown Castle,
+near Deal, where he lay for eleven months, and died on September
+11th, 1664. The wife petitioned for leave to share his prison, but was
+refused. When he felt himself dying, knowing the deep sorrow which
+his death would occasion to his wife, he left this message, which was
+conveyed to her: "Let her, as she is above other women, show herself on
+this occasion a good Christian, and above the pitch of ordinary women."
+Hence the wife's allusion to her husband's "command" in the above
+passage.]
+
+[Footnote 2015: Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson to her children concerning their father:
+'Memoirs of the Life of Col. Hutchinson' [20Bohn's Ed.], pp. 29-30.]
+
+[Footnote 2016: On the Declaration of American Independence, the first John Adams,
+afterwards President of the United States, bought a copy of the 'Life
+and Letters of Lady Russell,' and presented it to his wife, "with an
+express intent and desire" [20as stated by himself], "that she should
+consider it a mirror in which to contemplate herself; for, at that time,
+I thought it extremely probable, from the daring and dangerous career
+I was determined to run, that she would one day find herself in the
+situation of Lady Russell, her husband without a head:" Speaking of his
+wife in connection with the fact, Mr. Adams added: "Like Lady Russell,
+she never, by word or look, discouraged me from running all hazards for
+the salvation of my country's liberties. She was willing to share
+with me, and that her children should share with us both, in all the
+dangerous consequences we had to hazard."]
+
+[Footnote 2017: 'Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romily,' vol. i. p. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 2018: It is a singular circumstance that in the parish church of St.
+Bride, Fleet Street, there is a tablet on the wall with an inscription
+to the memory of Isaac Romilly, F.R.S., who died in 1759, of a broken
+heart, seven days after the decease of a beloved wife--CHAMBERS' BOOK OF
+DAYS, vol. ii. p. 539.]
+
+[Footnote 2019: Mr. Frank Buckland says "During the long period that Dr. Buckland
+was engaged in writing the book which I now have the honour of editing,
+my mother sat up night after night, for weeks and months consecutively,
+writing to my father's dictation; and this often till the sun's rays,
+shining through the shutters at early morn, warned the husband to cease
+from thinking, and the wife to rest her weary hand. Not only with her
+pen did she render material assistance, but her natural talent in
+the use of her pencil enabled her to give accurate illustrations and
+finished drawings, many of which are perpetuated in Dr. Buckland's
+works. She was also particularly clever and neat in mending broken
+fossils; and there are many specimens in the Oxford Museum, now
+exhibiting their natural forms and beauty, which were restored by
+her perseverance to shape from a mass of broken and almost comminuted
+fragments."]
+
+[Footnote 2020: Veitch's 'Memoirs of Sir William Hamilton.']
+
+[Footnote 2021: The following extract from Mr. Veitch's biography will give one an
+idea of the extraordinary labours of Lady Hamilton, to whose unfailing
+devotion to the service of her husband the world of intellect has been
+so much indebted: "The number of pages in her handwriting," says Mr.
+Veitch,--"filled with abstruse metaphysical matter, original and quoted,
+bristling with proportional and syllogistic formulae--that are still
+preserved, is perfectly marvellous. Everything that was sent to the
+press, and all the courses of lectures, were written by her, either to
+dictation, or from a copy. This work she did in the truest spirit of
+love and devotion. She had a power, moreover, of keeping her husband up
+to what he had to do. She contended wisely against a sort of energetic
+indolence which characterised him, and which, while he was always
+labouring, made him apt to put aside the task actually before
+him--sometimes diverted by subjects of inquiry suggested in the course
+of study on the matter in hand, sometimes discouraged by the difficulty
+of reducing to order the immense mass of materials he had accumulated
+in connection with it. Then her resolution and cheerful disposition
+sustained and refreshed him, and never more so than when, during the
+last twelve years of his life, his bodily strength was broken, and his
+spirit, though languid, yet ceased not from mental toil. The truth is,
+that Sir William's marriage, his comparatively limited circumstances,
+and the character of his wife, supplied to a nature that would have been
+contented to spend its mighty energies in work that brought no reward
+but in the doing of it, and that might never have been made publicly
+known or available, the practical force and impulse which enabled him
+to accomplish what he actually did in literature and philosophy. It was
+this influence, without doubt, which saved him from utter absorption
+in his world of rare, noble, and elevated, but ever-increasingly
+unattainable ideas. But for it, the serene sea of abstract thought might
+have held him becalmed for life; and in the absence of all utterance of
+definite knowledge of his conclusions, the world might have been left to
+an ignorant and mysterious wonder about the unprofitable scholar."]
+
+[Footnote 211: 'Calcutta Review,' article on 'Romance and Reality of Indian Life.']
+
+[Footnote 212: Joseph Lancaster was only twenty years of age when [21in 1798: he
+opened his first school in a spare room in his father's house, which was
+soon filled with the destitute children of the neighbourhood. The room
+was shortly found too small for the numbers seeking admission, and one
+place after another was hired, until at length Lancaster had a special
+building erected, capable of accommodating a thousand pupils; outside of
+which was placed the following notice:--"All that will, may send their
+children here, and have them educated freely; and those that do not
+wish to have education for nothing, may pay for it if they please." Thus
+Joseph Lancaster was the precursor of our present system of National
+Education.]
+
+[Footnote 213: A great musician once said of a promising but passionless
+cantatrice--"She sings well, but she wants something, and in that
+something everything. If I were single, I would court her; I would marry
+her; I would maltreat her; I would break her heart; and in six months
+she would be the greatest singer in Europe!"--BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.]
+
+[Footnote 214: Prescot's 'Essays,' art. Cervantes.]
+
+[Footnote 215: A cavalier, named Ruy de Camera, having called upon Camoens to
+furnish a poetical version of the seven penitential psalms, the poet,
+raising his head from his miserable pallet, and pointing to his faithful
+slave, exclaimed: "Alas! when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and
+blest with the love of ladies; but now, I am a forlorn deserted wretch!
+See--there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating FOURPENCE to
+purchase a little coals. I have not them to give him!" The cavalier,
+Sousa quaintly relates, in his 'Life of Camoens,' closed his heart
+and his purse, and quitted the room. Such were the grandees of
+Portugal!--Lord Strangford's REMARKS ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF
+CAMOENS, 1824.]
+
+[Footnote 216: See chapter v. p. 125.]
+
+[Footnote 217: A Quaker called on Bunyan one day with "a message from the Lord,"
+saying he had been to half the gaols of England, and was glad at last
+to have found him. To which Bunyan replied: "If the Lord sent thee, you
+would not have needed to take so much trouble to find me out, for He
+knew that I have been in Bedford Gaol these seven years past."]
+
+[Footnote 218: Prynne, besides standing in the pillory and having his ears cut off,
+was imprisoned by turns in the Tower, Mont Orgueil [21Jersey], Dunster
+Castle, Taunton Castle, and Pendennis Castle. He after-wards pleaded
+zealously for the Restoration, and was made Keeper of the Records
+by Charles II. It has been computed that Prynne wrote, compiled, and
+printed about eight quarto pages for every working-day of his life, from
+his reaching man's estate to the day of his death. Though his books
+were for the most part appropriated by the trunkmakers, they now command
+almost fabulous prices, chiefly because of their rarity.]
+
+[Footnote 219: He also projected his 'Review' in prison--the first periodical of
+the kind, which pointed the way to the host of 'Tatlers,' 'Guardians,'
+and 'Spectators,' which followed it. The 'Review' consisted of 102
+numbers, forming nine quarto volumes, all of which were written by De
+Foe himself, while engaged in other and various labours.]
+
+[Footnote 2110: A passage in the Earl of Carlisles Lecture on Pope--'Heaven was
+made for those who have failed in this world'--struck me very forcibly
+several years ago when I read it in a newspaper, and became a rich vein
+of thought, in which I often quarried, especially when the sentence
+was interpreted by the Cross, which was failure apparently."--LIFE AND
+LETTERS OF ROBERTSON [21of Brighton], ii. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 2111:
+
+      "Not all who seem to fail, have failed indeed;
+      Not all who fail have therefore worked in vain:
+      For all our acts to many issues lead;
+      And out of earnest purpose, pure and plain,
+      Enforced by honest toil of hand or brain,
+      The Lord will fashion, in His own good time,
+      [21Be this the labourer's proudly-humble creed,]
+      Such ends as, to His wisdom, fitliest chime
+      With His vast love's eternal harmonies.
+      There is no failure for the good and wise:
+      What though thy seed should fall by the wayside
+      And the birds snatch it;--yet the birds are fed;
+      Or they may bear it far across the tide,
+      To give rich harvests after thou art dead."
+                      POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE, 1848.]
+
+[Footnote 2112: "What is it," says Mr. Helps, "that promotes the most and the
+deepest thought in the human race? It is not learning; it is not the
+conduct of business; it is not even the impulse of the affections. It
+is suffering; and that, perhaps, is the reason why there is so much
+suffering in the world. The angel who went down to trouble the waters
+and to make them healing, was not, perhaps, entrusted with so great
+a boon as the angel who benevolently inflicted upon the sufferers the
+disease from which they suffered."--BREVIA.]
+
+[Footnote 2113: These lines were written by Deckar, in a spirit of boldness equal
+to its piety. Hazlitt has or said of them, that they "ought to
+embalm his memory to every one who has a sense either of religion, or
+philosophy, or humanity, or true genius."]
+
+[Footnote 2114: Reboul, originally a baker of Nismes, was the author of many
+beautiful poems--amongst others, of the exquisite piece known in this
+country by its English translation, entitled 'The Angel and the Child.']
+
+[Footnote 2115: 'Cornhill Magazine,' vol. xvi. p. 322.]
+
+[Footnote 2116: 'Holy Living and Dying,' ch. ii. sect. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2117: Ibid., ch. iii. sect. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2118: Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' vol. x. p. 40.]
+
+
+
+
+
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