The Elements of Character Part 7

The ill-breeding so often complained of in the intercourse between the different cla.s.ses of society, and by none more indignantly than those who exercise it most, results from the fact.i.tious value set upon the externals of life by those who estimate them in proportion as they give distinction among men, and not as they increase the means of happiness and usefulness in this world, and so prepare us for the usefulness and happiness of the world to come.

Those among the poor, the ignorant, and the vulgar, whose hearts are burning with envy and hatred; and those among the rich, the learned, and the fashionable, who are rendered arrogant and supercilious by their possessions, are alike unconscious of the true worth of the blessings that excite the covetousness of the one cla.s.s and the exultation of the other. Each party values man for his possessions, and not for the use that he makes of them; for what he has, and not for what he is. Where this is the case, mutual aversion ultimating itself on both sides in acts of discourtesy, will ever keep alive a spirit of antagonism among the various cla.s.ses of society; and this will disappear in proportion as society becomes sufficiently Christianized to perceive and acknowledge that every human being is worthy of respect so far as he fulfils the duties of his station; and that we cannot be discourteous even towards the evil and the unfaithful, without indulging feelings of pride and disdain that are incompatible with Christian meekness.

In the social intercourse of equals, and in domestic life, ill-temper, selfishness, and indifference, which is a negative form of selfishness, are the princ.i.p.al sources of ill-breeding. Where the external forms of courtesy are not observed in the family circle, we are almost sure to find perpetually recurring contention and bickering. Rudeness is a constant source of irritation; because, however little the members of a family regard politeness, each will have his own way of being rude, and each will probably be disgusted or angry at some portion of the ill-breeding of all the rest. Rudeness is always angular, and its sharp corners produce discomfort whenever they come in contact with a neighbor. Politeness presents only polished surfaces, and not only never intrudes itself upon a neighbor, but is rarely obtruded upon; for there is no way so effectual of disarming rudeness as by meeting it with thorough politeness; for the rude man can fight only with his own weapons.

Indifference of Manner exhibits a disregard for the comfort and pleasure of those around us, which, though not so obtrusive as rudeness, shows an egotism of disposition incompatible with brotherly love. If we love our neighbor as ourself, we cannot habitually forget his existence so far as to annoy him by neglecting to perform, the common courtesies of life towards him, or interfere with what he is doing by not perceiving that we are in his way.

If we would be thoroughly well-bred, we must be so constantly. It is not very difficult to distinguish in society between those whose manners are a.s.sumed for the occasion and those who wear them habitually. The former are apt to forget themselves occasionally, or they overact their part, or if they succeed in sustaining a perfect elegance of deportment that is really pleasing as an effort of art, they always want the grace of naturalness and simplicity which belongs to the Manners of those who have made courtesy and refinement their own by loving them. It is only when we act as we love to act, that our Manners are truly our own. If we cultivate the external forms of politeness from an indirect motive, that is, from the love of approbation, or from pride of character, it is the reward we love, and not the virtue; and if we gain this reward, it is only external and perishable; and is of no benefit to our character, but the reverse, for it ministers only to our pride. If, on the contrary, we cultivate politeness with simplicity, because we believe it to be a virtue, and love it for its own sake, we are sure of the reward of an added grace of character, which can never be taken from us, because it is a part of ourselves; and though we may enjoy the external rewards if they come, we shall not be disturbed if they do not; because these were not the motives that induced our efforts.

Politeness, where it is loved and cultivated with simplicity for its own sake, gives a repose and ease of action to the moral being which may be compared to the comfort and satisfaction resulting to the physical frame from habits of personal cleanliness. The moral tone is elevated and refined by the one, as the animal functions are purified and renewed by the other.

As in civil life liberty to the whole results from the subjection of the evil pa.s.sions of all to legal enactments, so in social life every individual is free and at ease in proportion as all the rest are subject to the laws of courtesy. Ease and freedom are the result of order, and it is as incorrect to call rude Manners free and easy, as to call licentiousness liberty. No man is truly free who allows his sphere of life to impinge upon that of his neighbor. Fluids are said to move easily because each particle is without angular projections that prevent it from gliding smoothly with or by its companions; and in like manner the ease of society depends on the polish of each individual. If the units of society seek their own selfish indulgence, without regard to the rights of the neighbor, the whole must form a ma.s.s of grating atoms in which no one can be free, or at ease.

Indifference, ill-temper, selfishness, envy and arrogance, all positive vices, are the characteristics that ultimate themselves in ill-manners.

Rudeness is, as it were, the offensive odor exhaled from the corrupt fruit of an evil tree; and he who would be a branch of the true vine must remember, whenever he is tempted to do a rude thing, that he will never yield to such temptation unless there is hidden somewhere upon his branch fruit that should be cut off and cast into the fire.

The Christian gentleman and lady are such because they love their neighbor as themselves; and to be a thorough Christian without being a gentleman or lady is impossible. Wherever we find the rich without arrogance, and the poor without envy, the various members of society sustaining their mutual relations without suspicion or pretension, the family circle free from rivalry, fault-finding, or discord, we shall find nothing ungentle, for there the spirit of Christianity reigns. He who is pure in heart can never be vulgar in speech, and he who is meek and loving in spirit can never be rude in manner.

COMPANIONSHIP.

Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things: narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly."--THACKERAY.

"According to the temper and spirit by which it is influenced, prayer opens or shuts the kingdom of life and peace on the soul of the supplicant, elevating him either to a closer conjunction with the Lord and his angelic kingdom, or plunging him into a more deplorable depth of separation, by immersing him into a.s.sociation with the lost spirits of darkness."--CLOWES.

Man was not born to live alone, and it is only in and through the relations of the family and the social circle that the better parts of his nature can be developed. Solitude is good occasionally, and they who fly from it entirely can hardly attain to any high degree of spiritual growth; but still in all useful solitude there must be a recognition of some being beside self. He who turns to solitude only to brood over thoughts of self, soon becomes a morbid egoist, and it is only when we study in solitude in order to make our social life more wise and true that our solitary hours are blessed.

Man really alone is something we can hardly imagine. He becomes cognizable almost entirely through his relations with G.o.d and with his fellow-men. Heathen philosophy sought to make man wise by withdrawing him from the pa.s.sions and affections that move him when a.s.sociated with his fellow-men, in order that he might devote himself to the study of abstract truth. Christian philosophy teaches that truth owes its sanct.i.ty to the Divine Love, which alone gives it Life; and that by leading a life of love we acquire the power of understanding the truth.

Philosophy is a dead abstraction until piety and charity fill it with the breath of life.

The offices of piety belong in great part to solitude, and the offices of charity to society; but the principle of Companionship is involved in both; for piety a.s.sociates us with G.o.d as charity a.s.sociates us with man.

All Companionship involves the idea of both giving and receiving. In the offices of piety, in proportion as we give a worship that is earnest and heartfelt, is the warmth and clearness of the influx of heavenly love and wisdom that we receive. In the offices of charity, our love is warmed and our wisdom enlightened in proportion as we disinterestedly seek the true happiness of those whose lives come within the sphere of our influence, guided, not by blind instinct, but by an enlightened Christianity. Thus the quality and quant.i.ty of what we receive from Companionship depends on the quality and quant.i.ty of what we give.

There is no surer test of Character than the Companionship we habitually seek; for we always prefer the society of those who administer to our dominant love. Some seek the society of their superiors, others of their equals, and others, again, of their inferiors; and the members of each cla.s.s are actuated in their choice by very various motives. Thus, among the first cla.s.s are found the ambitious, who seek their superiors because they fancy themselves elevated by the reflection of the attributes they admire; the proud, who fancy themselves degraded by a.s.sociation with their inferiors; and the humble, who seek to be advanced in goodness, in knowledge, or in refinement through intercourse with those who excel. On the other hand are those who seek their inferiors from the vanity that demands admiration as its daily food, or the pride that feels itself oppressed in the presence of a superior, or the philanthropy that loves to give of its stores to those less endowed than itself. The middle cla.s.s may be actuated in their choice by the love of sympathy in their pursuits, or by a kind of indolence that is disturbed by whatever differs much from itself. There is less purpose and vitality in this cla.s.s than in either of the others; but merely a desire to float with the surrounding current, whithersoever it may tend.

The const.i.tuents of society are so varied in quality, that it would be very difficult for any one to a.s.sociate exclusively with a particular cla.s.s; and it may be doubted if we have a right to seek to do so. The variety in social life is adapted to develop the various qualities of the human soul far more perfectly than they could be if the different cla.s.ses of humanity were entirely separated in their walks. All should be willing to give as well as to receive, and to this end all should be willing to a.s.sociate in a spirit of brotherly love with their superiors or their inferiors without any feeling either of servility or of elation. We may seek the society of our superiors in order to enrich ourselves, and that of our inferiors in order to give freely even as we have received; while with our equals we alternately give and receive, for no two persons are so similarly endowed but that each may gain by a.s.sociating with the other. In truth, whichever way the balance may incline, none ever give without receiving, and none can receive without giving.

No Companionship is wise that does not involve the principle of growth.

If the influence of our a.s.sociates does not make us go forward, it will surely cause us to go backward. If we are not elevated by it, we shall certainly be degraded. Two persons cannot a.s.sociate and either party remain just as he was before; and if we would find in society an element of growth, we must seek for all that is elevating in whatever circles we move; for it is not confined to any particular circle or cla.s.s, but waits everywhere for the true seeker.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, said the Lord, teaching as never man taught; and it is in proportion as we walk meekly with our fellow-men that our capacities become capable of receiving, to their fullest extent, the influx of goodness and truth that should be the end of social intercourse. Nothing obstructs our receptivity so much as that egoism of thought and affection which keeps self perpetually before the mind's eye, and to this egoism meekness is the direct opposite. Meekness implies forgetfulness of self. There is nothing servile about it, but it pursues its way in pure simplicity, forgetting self in its steadfast devotion to what it seeks. Egoism pursues its aims from love of self and of the world, and confides in its own strength for success. Meekness pursues its aims from the love of excellence, and confiding in the strength of the Lord. The first love is dim of sight, and often satisfies itself with the shadow of what it seeks, while its strength is too feeble to grasp the higher forms of excellence. The second love is full of light, because its eye is single; it can be satisfied only with substance, and its endeavors know no limit, because its strength comes from Him who never fails nor wearies.

Meekness is always ready to receive of the excellence it seeks, through whatever medium it can be obtained; while egoism is perpetually hindered in its advancement by its unwillingness to owe it to any source out of self.

Similar results follow in giving as in receiving. Meekness gives in simplicity from love to the neighbor, and feels as great pleasure in imparting from its stores as in receiving additions to them, because the pleasure it imparts is reflected back upon itself, making all its good offices twice blessed. Egoism is twice cursed, as all that it receives and all that it gives perpetually adds to its love of self; for it values what it possesses because it is its own, and imparts to others because it enjoys a feeling of superiority over the recipient of its possessions. Meekness builds itself up; egoism puffs itself up. To meekness Companionship is a perpetual source of healthful growth; while to egoism it furnishes food only to supply the demands of a morbid enlargement, destructive to all manly and womanly symmetry.

Society at large, according as we walk in it in a spirit of meekness or a spirit of egoism, thus serves to develop and expand our powers, or to narrow and degrade them more and more continually. To the casual observer, the difference in the advancement of the two cla.s.ses may not in early life be apparent. The forth-putting pretension of egoism may indeed cause it to seem the more rapidly advancing character of the two; but the progress of years will widen the separation between their paths, till it shall be seen as a great gulf, of which the opposite sides have naught in common. Advancing age will show the egoist narrow-minded and overbearing, peevish and fault-finding; while he who pursues his even course, walking in Christian meekness with his fellow-men, will in old age exhibit ever-enlarging charity and ever-expanding wisdom, and his gray hairs will seem like a crown of glory.

It may seem almost needless to speak of the danger to Character that is involved in seeking the Companionship of the worthless or the evil- disposed. "Can one handle pitch and not be defiled?" Yet the usages of society are so disordered, that the possession of wealth, family distinction, or personal elegance, though accompanied by ignorance, folly, or even dissoluteness, is sometimes a surer pa.s.sport into what is termed good society than the best culture of mind and heart, where external advantages have been denied.

When we value mankind according to their external advantages, our moral standard is as false as the drawing upon a Chinese plate. We have no true moral perspective. Our ideas of right and wrong are confused and imperfect, and in danger of becoming corrupt. We laugh at the stupidity of the poor Chinaman in his attempts after beauty in art, while in morals we are quite as stupid as he. Believing ourselves wise, we are fools. It is very hard to escape being unduly influenced by the opinions of society; but the more earnestly we seek true excellence for ourselves, the more easily we learn to value true excellence in others, and, to overlook the opinions of the world. The more independent we become of opinion, the better will be the influence we exert upon society, as well as that which we receive from it in return.

If the influence of our Companionship with those whom we meet in general society and in the daily avocations of life be important, far more so is that which comes to us through the friends whom we select from the world at large as best adapted to minister to our happiness; and in proportion as they are near and dear to us will their influence be strong and deep.

The choice of friends is influenced by an equal variety of motives, and of a similar nature as those that lead to the selection of the social circle. There is often no better foundation than selfishness for what pa.s.ses current in the world for ardent friendship. The selfish and worldly love from selfish and worldly motives, and doubtless they receive their reward; but if we would derive the advantages to Character that result from a wise Companionship, we must select our friends without undue regard to the opinions of the world, and impelled by a desire for moral or intellectual advancement. Falsehood and fickleness in friendship result from its being built upon merely selfish or circ.u.mstantial foundations. When built upon mutual respect and affection, it contains no element of decay or change; and they who trust to any other foundation have no right to complain if their confidence is abused and disappointed.

Persons sometimes suppose themselves the fast friends of others, when their affection is merely the result of benefits received directly or indirectly; and if these benefits are withheld, their supposed friendship is dissipated at once, or perhaps changed to enmity. Such a friendship is merely circ.u.mstantial, and has no just claim to the name.

Mere juxtaposition, the habit of seeing each other every day, is often sufficient to produce what the parties concerned esteem friendship, and to occasion the freest interchange of confidence. The slightest change of circ.u.mstance, a few miles of separation, an inadvertent offence, a trival difference of opinion, a clashing of interests, are, any one of them, sufficient to bring such an intimacy to an end, and to cast reproach upon the sacred name of friendship, when friendship had never existed between the parties for a single moment.

Genuine friendship can exist only between persons of some elevation of moral character, and its strength and devotion will be commensurate with the degree of this moral elevation. Truthfulness, frankness, disinterestedness, and faithfulness are qualities absolutely essential to friendship, and these must be crowned by a sympathy that enters into all the joys, the sorrows, and the interests of the friend, that delights in all his upward progress, and, when he stumbles or falls, as all at times must, stretches out the helping hand, not condescendingly nor scornfully, but in the simplicity of true charity, that forgives even as it would be forgiven, and is tender and patient even where it condemns. In such a friendship there is no room for rivalry, weariness, distrust, or anything subversive of confidence. With the selfish and the worldly, such a connection cannot exist, because with them rivalries and clashing interests must arise; for it is only among the seekers after excellence that there is room for the gratification of the desires of all. Neither can it exist between the false, for falsehood shuts the door upon confidence; nor with the morally weak, the foolish, or the idle, for they weary of each other even as they weary of themselves.

Of all earthly Companionship, there is none so deeply fraught with weal or woe, with blessing or with cursing, as the Companionship of married life. After this relationship is formed, although the threads still remain the same, the whole warp and woof of the being are dyed with a new color, woven according to a new pattern. Character is never the same after marriage as before. There is a new impetus given by it to the powers of thought and affection, inducing them to a different activity, and deciding what tendencies are henceforth to take the lead in the action of the mind; whether the soul is to spread its wings for a higher flight than it has. .h.i.therto ventured, or to sit with closed pinions, content to be of the earth, earthy. All are interested, even strangers, In hearing of the establishment of a newly married pair in what relates to the equipage of external life. Far more interesting would it be if we could trace the mental establishing that is going on, as old traits of character are confirmed or cast aside, and new ones developed or implanted.

This union, so sacred that it even supersedes that which exists between parent and child, should be entered upon only from the highest and purest motives; and then, let worldly prosperity come or go as it may, this twain whom G.o.d has joined, not by a mere formal ritual of the Church, but by a true spiritual union that man cannot put asunder, are a heaven unto themselves, and peace will ever dwell within their habitation.

In proportion as a true marriage of the affections between the pure in heart is productive of the highest happiness that can exist on earth, so every remove from it diminishes the degree of this happiness until it pa.s.ses into the opposite, and becomes, in its most worldly and selfish form, a fountain of misery, of a quality absolutely infernal.

Amid the disorder and imperfection reigning in the world, it is not to be supposed that a large proportion of marriages should be truly heavenly. In order to arrive at this, both parties must be of a higher moral standing than is often reached at an age when marriage is usually entered upon; but unless the character of each is inclined heavenward there is no rational ground for antic.i.p.ating happiness, except of the lowest kind.

Many persons of a naturally amiable disposition enjoy what may seem a high degree of happiness, through their sympathy with each other in worldliness and ambition; but such happiness is not of a kind that can endure the clouds and tempests of life. It is nourished only by the good things of this world, and, if it cannot obtain them, is converted into the greater wretchedness because the being who is dearest in life shares this wretchedness. When, on the contrary, things heavenly are those most highly prized and earnestly sought, each party helps to sustain the other in all earthly privations and disappointments; for each is looking beyond and above the trials of earth, and each is in possession of a hope, nay, a fruition, that cannot be taken away, and which is dearer than all that is lost. With them, to suffer together is to rob suffering of half its weight, and almost all its bitterness. Whatever earthly deprivation may befall them, the kingdom of heaven is ever within their souls.

The Companionship of our fellow-beings is not confined to the living men and women around us, but comes to us, through books, from all nations and ages. Wise teachers stand ever ready to instruct us, gentle moralists to console and strengthen us, poets to delight us. Scarce a country village is so poor that there may not be found beneath its roofs the printed words of more great men than ever lived at any one period of the earth's history.

We are too apt to use books, as well as society, merely for our amus.e.m.e.nt; to read the books that chance to fall into our hands, or to a.s.sociate with the persons we happen to meet with, and not stop to ask ourselves if nothing better is within our reach. It may not be in our power to a.s.sociate with great living minds, but the mental wealth of the past is within the reach of all. We boast much that we are a reading people, but it may be well to inquire how intelligently we read. The catalogues of books borrowed from our public libraries show, that, where the readers of works of amus.e.m.e.nt are counted by hundreds, the readers of instructive books are numbered by units. In conversation, it is not uncommon to hear persons expressing indifference or dislike to whole cla.s.ses of books,--to hear Travels denounced as stupid, Biography as tame, and History as heavy and dull. It does not seem to occur to the ma.s.s of minds that any purpose beyond the amus.e.m.e.nt of the moment is to be thought of in reading, or that any plan should be laid, or any principles adopted, in the choice of books to be read.

It is undoubtedly a great good that nearly all our people are taught to read, but it is a small fraction of the community that reads to much good purpose. Children, so soon as they have acquired the use of the alphabet, are inundated with little juvenile stories, some of them good, but most of them silly, and many vulgar. As they grow older, successions of similar works of fiction await them, until they arrive at adolescence, when they are fully prepared for all the wealth of folly, vulgarity, falsehood, and wickedness that is bound up within the yellow covers of most of the cheap novels that infest every highway of the nation.

As you are jostled through the streets of our populous cities, or take your seat in a crowded railway-car, you are, perhaps, impressed with the general air of rudeness that pervades the scene,--a rudeness of a kind so new to the world, that, no old word sufficing to describe it, a new name has been coined, and the swaggering, careless, sensual looking beings, reeking with the fumes of tobacco, that make up the ma.s.ses of our moving population, are adequately described only by the word _rowdy_. As yet, no t.i.tle has been found for the female of this cla.s.s, --bold, dashing, loud-talking and loud-laughing, ignorant, vain, and so coa.r.s.e that she supposes fine clothes and a.s.suming manners are all that is necessary to elevate her to the rank of a lady. Perhaps you wonder how so numerous a race of these beings has come to exist; but that boy at your elbow, bending under the weight of his literary burden, is a colporteur for converting the men and women of this "enlightened nation"

to rowdyism. Those books portray just such men and women as you see before you, and that is why they are welcomed so warmly. A few cents will buy from that boy enough folly and impurity to gorge a human mind for a week, and possibly few among this throng often taste more wholesome intellectual food.

It is probable that some of these persons are the children of intelligent and well-bred parents; but their fathers were engrossed in business, and their mothers in family cares, and thought they had no time to form the moral and intellectual tastes of the immortal minds committed to their charge. They fancied that if they sent their children to good schools, and provided liberally for all their external wants, they had done enough. Ignorant nursery maids, perhaps, taught them morals and manners, while the father toiled to acc.u.mulate the means for supplying their external wants, and the mother hemmed ruffles and scolloped tr.i.m.m.i.n.g to make people say, "How _sweetly_ those children are dressed!" as the maid paraded them through the streets, teaching them their first lessons in vulgar vanity.

A child may be educated at the best schools without acquiring any taste for good literature. The way a parent treats a child in relation to its books has far more influence in this respect than a teacher can possibly possess. A mother, even if she is not an educated woman, can learn to read understandingly, and can teach her child to read in the same way.

She can talk to it about its books, and awaken a desire in its mind to understand what it reads. Children are always curious in regard to the phenomena of nature, and whether this curiosity lives or dies depends very much on the answers it receives to its first questions. If the mother cannot answer them herself, she can help the child to find an answer somewhere else, and she should beware how she deceives herself with the idea that she has not time to attend to the moral and intellectual wants of her child. She has no right to so immerse all her own mind in the cares of life that she cannot, while attending to them, talk rationally with her children. The mothers who best fulfil their higher duties towards their children are quite as often found among those who are compelled to almost constant industry of the hands, as among those of abundant leisure. There is nothing in the handiwork of the housekeeper or the seamstress that need absorb all the mental attention; and hers must be an ill-regulated mind that cannot ply the needle, or perform the more active duties of the household, and yet listen to the child as it reads its little books, and converse with it about the moral lessons or the intellectual instruction they contain.

The mother has it in her power to influence the mode in which the child makes companions of its books more than any other person; and the character of its Companionship with them through life will generally depend in a great degree on the tastes and habits acquired in childhood.

Many parents who guard their children with jealous care from the contamination of rude and vicious society among other children, allow them to a.s.sociate with ideal companions of a very degraded kind. The parent should check the propensity, not only to read bad books, but also to read idle or foolish books, by exciting the action of the mind towards something better. Merely to deny improper books is not enough.

Something must be given in place of them, or the craving will continue, and the child will be very apt to gratify its appet.i.te in secret.

Children are easily led to observe nature, animate or inanimate, with interest, and there are many simple books ill.u.s.trating the departments of natural science which mothers could make interesting to their children at the same time that they instructed themselves. Juvenile works on history abound, and through them the child may be led, as intelligence expands, to seek more extended and thorough treatises; and the sympathy of the mother should be ready to help him on his way. It is mere self-deception in those mothers who deny their mental capacity, or their command of time, to aid their children in their mental progress.

It is a _moral_ want of their own, far more than everything else, that causes them to shrink from this most important responsibility.