Character Part 23

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 ma.n.u.scripts, 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 n.o.ble 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 c.h.i.n.ks 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.... G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 const.i.tution 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 aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, 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 gla.s.s darkly." But though we may not apprehend the full meaning of the discipline of trial through which the best have to pa.s.s, 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 coc.o.o.n 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 Pet.i.tion of Right, A.D. 1628.]

[Footnote 105: The Rev. F. W. Farrer's 'Seekers after G.o.d,' 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 Circ.u.mstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of Circ.u.mstance. It is Character which builds an existence out of Circ.u.mstance. 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Princ.i.p.al 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 dest.i.tute 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 emba.s.sy 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 s.e.x.]

[Footnote 1011: Condensed from Sir Thomas Overbury's 'Characters' [101614].]

[Footnote 1012: 'History of the Peninsular War,' v. 319.--Napier mentions another striking ill.u.s.tration 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 surpa.s.sing 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 n.o.bIS."

(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 compa.s.s, was, 'Let men know that they are men created by G.o.d, responsible to G.o.d 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 circ.u.mstances: 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 antic.i.p.ated 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 pa.s.sages 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 l.u.s.t made; and a l.u.s.t 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."]