Analyze strictly, however, during even this one day, the feelings that have given you the most annoyance, and the contemplated or executed measures of deed or word to which those feelings have prompted you, and you must plead guilty to the heinous charge of "rejoicing at your brother's faults and misfortunes." It is not so much, indeed, with relation to important matters that this feeling is excited within you. If you hear of your friends being left large fortunes, or forming connections calculated to promote their happiness, you are not annoyed or grieved: you may even, perhaps, experience some sensations of pleasure. If, however, the circumstances of good fortune are brought more home to yourself, perhaps into collision with yourself, by being of a more trifling nature, you often experience a regret or annoyance at the success or the happiness of others, which would be ludicrous, if it were not so wicked. Neither is there any vice which displays itself so readily to the keen eye of observation: even when the guarded tongue restrains the disclosure, the expression of the lip and eye is unmistakeable, and gradually impresses a character on the countenance which remains at times when the feeling itself is quite dormant. Only contemplate your case in this point of view: is it not, when dispassionately considered, shocking to think, that when a stranger hopes to gratify you by the praise, the judicious and well-merited praise, of your dearest friend, a pang is inflicted on you by the very words that ought to sound as pleasant music in your ears? I have even heard some persons so incautious, under such circumstances, as to qualify the praise that gives them pain, by detracting from the merits of the person under discussion, though that person be their particular friend. This is done in a variety of ways: her merits and advantages may be accounted for by the peculiarly favouring circumstances in which she has been placed; or different disparaging opinions entertained of her, by other people better qualified to judge, may also be mentioned. Now, many persons thus imprudent are by no means utterly foolish at other times; yet, in the moment of temptation from their besetting sin, they do not observe how inevitable it is that the stranger so replied to should immediately detect their unamiable motives, and estimate them accordingly.

You will not, perhaps, fall into so open a snare, for you have sufficient tact and quickness of perception to know that, under such circumstances, you must, on your own account, bury in your bosom those emotions of pain which I much fear you will generally feel. It is not, however, the outward expression of such emotions, but their inward experience, which is the real question we are considering, both as regards your present happiness and your eternal interest. Ask yourself whether it is a pleasurable sensation, or the contrary, when those you love (I am still putting a strong case) are admired and appreciated, ire held up as examples of excellence? If you love truly, if you are free from envy, such praise will be far sweeter to your ears than any bestowed on yourself could ever be. Indeed, it might be considered a sufficient punishment for this vice, to be deprived of the deep and virtuous sensation of delight experienced by the loving heart when admiration is warmly expressed for the objects of their affection.

There has been a time when I should have scornfully rejected the supposition that such a failing as envy could exist in companionship with aught that was loveable or amiable. More observation of character has, however, given me the unpleasant conviction that it occasionally may be found in the close neighbourhood of contrasting excellences. Alas! instead of being concealed or gradually overgrown by them, it, on the contrary, spreads its deadly blight over any noble features that may have originally existed in the character. Nothing but the severest discipline, external and internal, can arrest this, its natural course.

When you were younger, the feelings which I now warn you against were called jealousy, and even now some indulgent friends may continue to give them this false name. Do not you suffer the dangerous delusion! Have the courage to place your feelings in all their natural deformity before you, and this sight will give you energy to pursue any regimen, however severe, that may be required to subdue them.

I do really believe that it is the false name of jealousy that prevents many an early struggle against the real vice of envy. I have heard young women even boast of the jealousy of their disposition, insinuating that it was to be considered as a proof of warm feelings and an affectionate heart. Perhaps genuine jealousy may deserve to be so considered: the anxious watching over even imaginary diminution of affection or esteem in those we love and respect, the vigilance to detect the slightest external manifestation of any diminution in their tenderness and regard, though proving a deficiency in that noble faith which is the surest safeguard and the firmest foundation of love and friendship, may, in some cases, be an evidence of affection and warmth in the disposition and the heart. So close, however, is the connection between envy and jealousy, that the latter in one moment may change into the former. The most watchful circumspection, therefore, is required, lest that which is, even in its best form, a weakness and an instrument of misery to ourselves and others, should still further degenerate into a meanness and a vice;—as, for instance, when you fear that the person you love may be induced, by seeing the excellences of another, to withdraw from you some of the time, admiration, and affection you wish to be exclusively bestowed upon yourself. In this case, there is a strong temptation to display the failings of the dreaded rival, or, at the best, to feel no regret at their chance display. Under such circumstances, even the excusable jealousy of affection passes over into the vice of envy. The connection between them is, indeed, dangerously close; but it is easy to trace the boundary line, if we are inclined to do so. Jealousy is contented with the affection and admiration of those it loves and respects; envy is in despair, if those whom it despises bestow the least portion of attention or admiration on those whom perhaps she despises still more. Jealousy inquires only into the feelings of the few valued ones; envy makes no distinction in her cravings for universal preference. The very attentions and admiration which were considered valueless, nay, troublesome, as long as they were bestowed on herself, become of exceeding importance when they are transferred to another. Envy would make use of any means whatever to win back the friend or the admirer whose transferred attentions were affording pleasure to another. The power of inflicting pain and disappointment on one whose superiority is envied, bestows on the object of former indifference, or even contempt, a new and powerful attraction. This is very wicked, very mean, you will say, and shrink back in horror from the supposition of any resemblance to such characters as those I have just described. Alas! your indignation may be honest, but it is without foundation. Already those earlier symptoms are constantly appearing, which, if not sternly checked, must in time grow into hopeless deformity of character. There is nothing that undermines all virtuous and noble qualities more surely or more insidiously than the indulged vice of envy. Its unresisting victims become, by degrees, capable of every species of detraction, until they lose even the very power of perceiving that which is true. They become, too, incapable of all generous self-denial and self-sacrifice; feelings of bitterness towards every successful rival (and there are few who may not be our rivals on some one point or other) gradually diffuse themselves throughout the heart, and leave no place for that love of our neighbour which the Scriptures have stated to be the test of love to God.[37]

Unlike most other vices, envy can never want an opportunity of indulgence; so that, unless it is early detected and vigilantly controlled, its rapid growth is inevitable.

Early detection is the first point; and in that I am most anxious to assist you. Perhaps, till now, the possibility of your being guilty of the vice of envy has never entered your thoughts. When any thing resembling it has forced itself on your notice, you have probably given it the name of jealousy, and have attributed the painful emotions it excited to the too tender susceptibilities of your nature. Ridiculous as such self-deception is, I have seen too many instances of it to doubt the probability of its existing in your case.

I am not, in general, an advocate for the minute analysis of mental emotions: the reality of them most frequently evaporates during the process, as in anatomy the principle of life escapes during the most vigilant anatomical examination. In the case, however, of seeking the detection of a before unknown failing, a strict mental inquiry must necessarily be instituted. The many great dangers of mental anatomy may be partly avoided by confining your observations to the external symptoms, instead of to the state of mind from whence they proceed. This will be the safer as well as the more effectual mode of bringing conviction home to your mind. For instance, I would have you watch the emotions excited when enthusiastic praise is bestowed upon another, with relation to those very qualities you are the most anxious should be admired in yourself. When the conversation or the accomplishments of another fix the attention which was withheld from your own,—when the opinion of another, with whom you fancy yourself on an equality, is put forward as deserving of being followed in preference to your own, I can imagine you possessed of sufficient self-respect to restrain any external tokens of envy: you will not insinuate, as meaner spirits would do, that the beauty, or the dress, or the accomplishments so highly extolled are preserved, cherished, and cultivated at the expense of time, kindly feelings, and the duty of almsgiving—that the conversation is considered by many competent judges flippant, or pedantic, or presuming—that the opinion cannot be of much value when the conduct has been in some instances so deficient in prudence.

These are all remarks which envy may easily find an opportunity of insinuating against any of its rivals; but, as I said before, I imagine that you have too much self-respect to manifest openly such feelings, to reveal such meanness to the eyes of man. Alas! you have not an equal fear of the all-seeing eye of God. What I apprehend most for you is the allowing yourself to cherish secretly all these palliative circumstances, that you may thus reconcile yourself to a superiority that mortifies you. If you habitually allow yourself in this practice, it will be almost impossible to avoid feeling pleasure instead of pain when these same circumstances happen to be pointed out by others, and when you have thus all the benefit, and none of the guilt or shame, of the disclosure. When envy is freely allowed to take these two first steps, a further progress is inevitable. Self-respect itself will not long preserve you from outward demonstrations of that which is inwardly indulged, and you are sure to become in time the object of just contempt and ridicule. It will soon be well known that the surest way to inflict pain upon you is to extol the excellences or to dwell on the happiness of others, and your failings will be considered an amusing subject for jesting observation to experimentalize upon. I have often watched the downward progress I have just described; and, unless the grace of God, working with your own vigorous self-control, should alter your present frame of mind, I can see no reason why you should escape when others inevitably fall.

The circumstance in which this vice manifests itself most painfully and most dangerously is that of a large family. How deplorable is it, when, instead of making each separate interest the interest of the whole, and rejoicing in the love and admiration bestowed on each separate individual, as if it were bestowed on the whole, such love and such admiration excite, on the contrary, irritation and regret.

Among children, this evil seldom attracts notice; if one girl is praised for dancing or singing much better than her sister, and the sister taunted into further efforts by insulting comparisons, the poor mistaken parent little thinks that, in the pain she inflicts on the depreciated child, she is implanting a perennial root of danger and sorrow. The child may cry and sob at the time, and afterward feel uncomfortable in the presence of one whose superiority has been made the means of worrying her; and, if envious by nature, she will probably take the first opportunity of pointing out to the teachers any little error of her sister's. The permanent injury, however, remains to be effected when they both grow to woman's estate; the envious sister will then take every artful opportunity of lessening the influence of the one who is considered her superior, of insinuating charges against her to those whose good opinion they both value the most. And she is only too easily successful; she is successful, that success may bring upon her the penalty of her sin, for Heaven is then the most incensed against us when our sin appears to prosper. Various and inexhaustible are the mere temporal punishments of this sin of envy; of the sin which deprives another of even one shade of the influence, admiration, and affection, they would otherwise have enjoyed.

If the preference of a female friend excites angry and jealous feelings, the attentions of an admirer are probably still more envied. In some unhappy families, one may observe the beginning of any such attentions by the vigilant depreciation of the admirer, and the anxious manoeuvres to prevent any opportunities of cultivating the detected preference. What prosperity can be hoped for to a family in which the supposed advantage and happiness of one individual member is feared and guarded against, instead of being considered an interest belonging to the whole? You will be shocked at such pictures as these: alas! that they should be so frequent even in domestic England, the land of happy homes and strong family ties. You are of course still more shocked at hearing that I attribute to yourself any shade of so deadly a vice as that above described; and as long as you do not attribute it to yourself, my warning voice will be raised in vain: I am not, however, without hope that the vigilant self-examination, which your real wish for improvement will probably soon render habitual, may open your eyes to your danger while it can still be easily averted. Supposing this to be the case, I would earnestly suggest to you the following means of cure. First, earnest prayer against this particular sin, earnest prayer to be brought into "a higher moral atmosphere," one of unfeigned love to our neighbour, one of rejoicing with all who do rejoice, "and weeping with those who weep." This general habit is of the greatest importance to cultivate: we should strive naturally and instinctively to feel pleasure when another is loved, or praised, or fortunate; we should try to strengthen our sympathies, to make the feelings of others, as much as possible, our own. Many an early emotion of envy might be instantly checked by throwing one's self into the position of the envied one, and exerting the imagination to conceive vividly the pleasure or the pain she must experience: this will, even at the time, make us forgetful of self, and will gradually bring us into the habit of feeling for the pain and pleasure of others, as if we really believed them to be members of the same mystical body.[38] We should, in the next place, attack the symptoms of the vice we wish to eradicate; we should seek by reasonable considerations to realize the absurdity of our envy: for this, nothing is more essential than the ascertaining of our own level, and fairly making up our minds to the certain superiority of others. As soon as this is distinctly acknowledged, much of the pain of the inferior estimation in which we are held will be removed: "There is no disgrace in being eclipsed by Jupiter." Next, let us examine into the details of the law of compensation—one which is never infringed; let us consider that the very superiority of others involves many unpleasantnesses, of a kind, perhaps, the most disagreeable to us. For instance, it often involves the necessity of a sacrifice of time and feelings, and almost invariably creates an isolation,—consequences from which we, perhaps, should fearfully shrink. On the brilliant conversationist is inflicted the penalty of never enjoying a rest in society: her expected employment is to amuse others, not herself; the beauty is the dread of all the jealous wives and anxious mothers, and the object of a notice which is almost incompatible with happiness: I never saw a happy beauty, did you? The great genius is shunned and feared by, perhaps, the very people whom she is most desirous to attract; the exquisite musician is asked into society en artiste, expected to contribute a certain species of amusement, the world refusing to receive any other from her. The woman who is surrounded by admirers is often wearied to death of attentions which lose all their charm with their novelty, and which frequently serve to deprive her of the only affection she really values. Experience will convince you of the great truth, that there is a law of compensation in all things. The same law also holds good with regard to the preferences shown to those who have no superiority over us, who are nothing more than our equals in beauty, in cleverness, in accomplishments. If Ellen B. or Lydia C. is liked more than you are by one person, you, in your turn, will be preferred by another; no one who seeks for affection and approbation, and who really deserves it, ever finally fails of acquiring it. You have no right to expect that every one should like you the best: if you considered such expectations in the abstract, you would be forced to acknowledge their absurdity. Besides, would it not be a great annoyance to you to give up your time and attention to conversing with, or writing to, the very people whose preference you envy for Ellen B. or Lydia C.? They are suited to each other, and like each other: in good time, you will meet with people who suit you, and who will consequently like you; nay, perhaps at this present moment, you may have many friends who delight in your society, and admire your character: will you lose the pleasure which such blessings are intended to confer, by envying the preferences shown to others? Bring the subject distinctly and clearly home to your mind. Whenever you feel an emotion of pain, have the courage to trace it to its source, place this emotion in all its meanness before you, then think how ridiculous it would appear to you if you contemplated it in another. Finally, ask yourself whether there can be any indulgence of such feelings in a heart that is bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ,—whether there can be any room for them in a temple of God wherein the spirit of God dwelleth.[39]

FOOTNOTES:

[37] 1 John iii.

[38] 1 Cor. xii. 25, 26.

[39] Cor. iii. 16.



LETTER V.

SELFISHNESS AND UNSELFISHNESS.

This is a difficult subject to address you upon, and one which you will probably reject as unsuited to yourself. There are few qualities that the possessor is less likely to be conscious of than either selfishness or unselfishness; because the actions proceeding from either are so completely instinctive, so unregulated by any appeal to principle, that they never, in the common course of things, attract any particular notice. We go on, therefore, strengthening ourselves in the habits of either, until a double nature, as it were, is formed, overlaying the first, and equally powerful with it. How unlovely is this in the case of selfishness, even where there are, besides, fine and striking features in the general character, and how lovely in the case of unselfishness, even when, as too frequently happens, there is little comparative strength or nobleness in its intellectual and moral accompaniments!

You are now young, you are affectionate, good-natured, obliging, possessed of gay and happy spirits, and a sweetness of temper that is seldom seen united with so much sparkling wit and lively sensibilities. Altogether, then, you are considered a very attractive person, and, in the love which all those qualities have won for you from those around you, may bring forward strong evidence against my charge of selfishness. But is not this love more especially felt by those who are not brought into daily and hourly collision with you. They only see you bright with good-humour, ready to talk, to laugh, and to make merry with them in any way they please. They therefore, in all probability, do not think you selfish. Are you certain, however, that the estimate formed of you by your nearest relatives will not be the estimate formed of you by even acquaintance some years hence, when lessened good-humour and strengthened habits of selfishness have brought out into more striking relief the natural faults of your character?

The selfishness of the gay, amusing, good-humoured girl is often unobserved, almost always tolerated; but when youth, beauty, and vivacity are gone, the vice appears in its native deformity, and she who indulges it becomes as unlovely as unloved. It is for the future you have cause to fear,—a future for which you are preparing gloom and dislike by the habits you are now forming in the small details of daily life, as well as in the pleasurable excitements of social intercourse. As I said before, these, at present almost imperceptible, habits are unheeded by those who are only your acquaintance: but they are not the less sowing the seeds of future unhappiness for you. You will, assuredly, at some period or other, reap in dislike what you are now sowing in selfishness. If, however, the warning voice of an "unknown friend" is attended to, there is yet time to complete a comparatively easy victory over this, your besetting sin; while, on the contrary, every week and every month's delay, by riveting more strongly the chains of habit, increases at once your difficulties and your consequent discouragement.

This day, this very hour, the conflict ought to begin: but, alas! how may this be, when you are not yet even aware of the existence of that danger which I warn you. It is most truly "a part of sin to be unconscious of itself."[40] It will also be doubly difficult to effect the necessary preliminary of convincing you of selfishness, when I am so situated as not to be able to point out to you with certainty any particular act indicative of the vice in question. This obliges me to enter into more varied details, to touch a thousand different strings, in the hope that, among so many, I may by chance touch upon the right one.

Now, it is a certain fact, that in such inquiries as the present, our enemies may be of much more use to us than our friends. They may, they generally do, exaggerate our faults, but the exaggeration gives them a relief and depth of colouring which may enable the accusation to force its way through the dimness and heavy-sightedness of our self-deception. Examine yourself, then, with respect to those accusations which others bring against you in moments of anger and excitement; place yourself in the situation of the injured party, and ask yourself whether you would not attach tho blame of selfishness to similar conduct in another person. For instance, you may perhaps be seated in a comfortable chair by a comfortable fire, reading an interesting book, and a brother or sister comes in to request that you will help them in packing something, or writing something that must be finished at a certain time, and that cannot be done without your assistance: the interruption alone, at a critical part of the story, or in the middle of an abstruse and interesting argument, is enough to irritate your temper and to disqualify you for listening with an unprejudiced ear to the request that is made to you. You answer, probably, in a tone of irritation; you say that it is impossible, that the business ought to have been attended to earlier, and that they could then have concluded it without your assistance; or perhaps you rise and go with them, and execute the thing to be done in a most ungracious manner, with a pouting lip and a surly tone, insinuating, too, for days afterwards, how much you had been annoyed and inconvenienced. The case would have been different if a stranger had made the request of you, or a friend, or any one but a near and probably very dear relative. In the former case, there would have been, first, the excitement which always in some degree distinguishes social from mere family intercourse; there would have been the wish to keep up their good opinion of your character, which they may have been deluded into considering the very reverse of unselfish. Lastly, their thanks would of course be more warm than those which you are likely to receive from a relative, (who instinctively feels it to be your duty to help in the family labours,) and thus your vanity would have been sufficiently gratified to reconcile you to the trouble and interruption to which you had been exposed.

Still further, it is, perhaps, only to your own family that you would have indulged in that introductory irritation of which I have spoken. We have all witnessed cases in which inexcusable excitement has been displayed towards relatives or servants who have announced unpleasant interruptions, in the shape of an unwelcome visitor; while the moment afterwards the real offender has been greeted with an unclouded brow and a warm welcome, she not having the misfortune of being so closely connected with you as the innocent victim of your previous ill-temper.

I enter into these details, not because they are necessarily connected with selfishness, for many unselfish, generous-minded people are the unfortunate victims of ill-temper, to which vice the preceding traits of character more peculiarly belong; but for the purpose of showing you that your conduct towards strangers can be no test of your unselfishness. It is only in the more trying details of daily life that the existence of the vice or the virtue can be evidenced. It is, nevertheless, upon qualities so imperceptible to yourself as to require this close scrutiny that most of the happiness and comfort of domestic life depends.

You know the story of the watch that had been long out of order, and the cause of its irregularity not to be discovered. At length, one watchmaker, more ingenious than the rest, suggested that a magnet might, by some chance, have touched the mainspring. This was ascertained by experiment to have been the case; the casual and temporary neighbourhood of a magnet had deranged the whole complicated machinery: and on equally imperceptible, often undiscoverable, trifles does the healthy movement of the mainspring of domestic happiness depend. Observe, then, carefully, every irregularity in its motion, and exercise your ingenuity to discover the cause in good time; the derangement may otherwise soon become incurable, both by the strengthening of your own habits, and the dispositions towards you which they will impress on the minds of others.

Do let me entreat you, then, to watch yourself during the course of even this one day,—first, for the purpose of ascertaining whether my accusation of selfishness is or is not well founded, and afterwards, for the purpose of seeking to eradicate from your character every taint of so unlovely, and, for the credit of the sex, I may add, so unfeminine a failing.

Before we proceed further on this subject, I must attempt to lay down a definition of selfishness, lest you should suppose that I am so mistaken as to confound with the vice above named that self-love, which is at once an allowable instinct and a positive duty.

Selfishness, then, I consider as a perversion of the natural and divinely-impressed instinct of self-love. It is a desire for things which are not really good for us, followed by an endeavour to obtain those things to the injury of our neighbour.[41] Where a sacrifice which benefits your neighbour can inflict no real injury on yourself, it would be selfishness not to make the sacrifice. On the contrary, where either one or the other must suffer an equal injury, (equal in all points of view—in permanence, in powers of endurance, &c.,) self-love requires that you should here prefer yourself. You have no right to sacrifice your own health, your own happiness, or your own life, to preserve the health, or the life, or the happiness of another; for none of these things are your own: they are only entrusted to your stewardship, to be made the best use of for God's glory. Your health is given you that you may have the free disposal of all your mental and bodily powers to employ them in his service; your happiness, that you may have energy to diffuse peace and cheerfulness around you; your life, that you may "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." We read of fine sacrifices of the kind I deprecate in novels and romances: we may admire them in heathen story; but with such sacrifices the real Christian has no concern. He must not give away that which is not his own. "Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."[42]

In the case of a sacrifice of life—one which, of course, can very rarely occur,—the dangerous results of thus, as it were, taking events out of the hand of God cannot be always visible to our sight at present: we should, however, contemplate what they might possibly be. Let us, then, consider the injury that may result to the self-sacrificer, throughout the countless ages of eternity, from the loss of that working-time of hours, days, and years, wilfully flung from him for the uncertain benefit of another. Yes, uncertain, for the person may at that time have been in a state of greater meetness for heaven than he will ever again enjoy: there may be future fearful temptations, and consequent falling into sin, from which he would have been preserved if his death had taken place when the providence of God seemed to will it. Of course, none of us can, by the most wilful disobedience, dispose events in any way but exactly that which his hand and his counsel have determined before the foundation of the world;[43] but when we go out of the narrow path of duty, we attempt, as far as in us lies, to reverse his unchangeable decrees, and we "have our reward;" we mar our own welfare, and that of others, when we make any effort to take the providing for it out of the hands of the Omnipotent.

It is, however, only for the establishment of a principle that it could be necessary to discuss the duties involved in such rare emergencies. I shall therefore proceed without further delay to the more common sacrifices of which I have spoken, and explain to you what I mean by such sacrifices.

I have alluded to those of health and happiness. We have all known the first wilfully thrown away by needless attendance on such sick friends as would have been equally well taken care of had servants or hired nurses shared in the otherwise overpowering labour. Often is this labour found to incapacitate the nurse-tending friend for fulfilling towards the convalescent those offices in which no menial could supply her place —such as the cheering of the drooping spirit, the selection and patient perusal of amusing books, an animated, amusing companionship in their walks and drives, the humouring of their sick fancy—a sickness that often increases as that of the body decreases. For all these trying duties, during the often long and always painfully tedious period of convalescence, the nightly watcher of the sick-bed has, it is most likely, unfitted herself. The affection and devotion which were useless and unheeded during days and nights of stupor and delirium have probably by this time worn out the weak body which they have been exciting to efforts beyond its strength, so that it is now incapable of more useful demonstrations of attachment. Far be it from me to depreciate that fond, devoted watching of love, which is sometimes even a compensation to the invalid for the sufferings of sickness, at periods, too, when hired attendance could not be tolerated. Here woman's love and devotion are often brightly shown. The natural impulses of her heart lead her to trample under foot all consideration of personal danger, fatigue, or weakness, when the need of her loved ones demands her exertions.

This, however, is comparatively easy; it is only following the instincts of her loving nature never to leave the sick room, where all her anxiety, all her hopes and fears are centred,—never to breathe the fresh air of heaven,—never to mingle in the social circle,—never to rest the weary limbs, or close the languid eye. The excitement of love and anxiety makes all this easy as long as the anxiety itself lasts: but when danger is removed, and the more trying duties of tending the convalescent begin, the genuine devotion of self-denial and unselfishness is put to the test.

Nothing is more difficult than to bear with patience the apparently unreasonable depression and ever-varying whims of the peevish convalescent, whose powers of self-control have been prostrated by long bodily exhaustion. Nothing is more trying than to find anxious exertions for their comfort and amusement, either entirely unnoticed and useless, or met with petulant contradiction and ungrateful irritation. Those who have themselves experienced the helplessness caused by disease well know how bitterly the trial is shared by the invalid herself. How deeply she often mourns over the unreasonableness and irritation she is without power to control, and what tears of anguish she sheds in secret over those acts of neglect and words of unkindness her own ill-humour and apparent ingratitude have unintentionally provoked.

Those who feel the sympathy of experience will surely wish, under all such circumstances, to exercise untiring patience and unremitting attention; but, however strong this wish may be, they cannot execute their purpose if their own health has been injured by previous unnecessary watchings, by exclusion from fresh air and exercise. Those whose nervous system has been thus unstrung will never be equal to the painful exertion which the recovering invalid now requires. How much better it would have been for her if walks and sleep had been taken at times when an attentive nurse would have done just as well to sit at the bedside, when absence would have been unnoticed, or only temporarily regretted! This prudent, and, we must remember, generally self-denying care of one's self, would have averted the future bodily illness or nervous depression of the nurse of the convalescent, at a time too when the latter has become painfully alive to every look and word, as well as act, of diminished attention and watchfulness; you will surely feel deep self-reproach if, from any cause, you are unable to control your own temper, and to bear with cheerful patience the petulance of hers.

I have dwelt so long on this part of my subject, because I think it very probable that, with your warm affections, and before your selfishness has been hardened by habits of self-indulgence, you might some time or other fall into the error I have been describing. In the ardour of your anxiety for some beloved relative, you may be induced to persevere in such close attendance on the sick-bed as may seriously injure your own health, and unfit you for more useful, and certainly more self-denying exertion afterwards. How much easier is it to spend days and nights by the sick-bed of one from whom we are in hourly dread of a final separation, whose helpless and suffering state excites the strongest feelings of compassion and anxiety, than to sit by the sofa, or walk by the side, of the same invalid when she has regained just sufficient strength to experience discomfort in every thing;—when she never finds her sofa arranged or placed to her satisfaction; is never pleased with the carriage, or the drive, or the walk you have chosen; is never interested in the book or the conversation with which you anxiously and laboriously try to amuse her. Here it is that woman's power of endurance, that the real strength and nobleness of her character is put to the most difficult test. Well, too, has this test been borne: right womanly has been the conduct of many a loving wife, mother, and sister, under the trying circumstances above described. Woman alone, perhaps, can steadily maintain the clear vision of what the beloved one really is, and can patiently view the wearisome ebullitions of ill-temper and discontent as symptoms equally physical with a cough or a hectic flush.

This noble picture of self-control can be realized only by those who keep even the best instincts of a woman's nature under the government of strict principle, remembering that the most beautiful of these instincts may not be followed without guidance or restraint. Those who yield to such instincts without reflection and self-denial will exhaust their energies before the time comes for the fulfilment of duties.

The third branch of my subject is the most difficult. It may, indeed, appear strange that we should not have the right to sacrifice our own happiness: that surely belongs to us to dispose of, if nothing else does. Besides, happiness is evidently not the state of being intended for us here below; and that much higher state of mind from which all "hap"[44] is excluded—viz. blessedness—is seldom granted unless the other is altogether withdrawn.

You must, however, observe that this blessedness is only granted when the lower state—that of happiness—could not be preserved except by a positive breach of duty, or when it is withheld or destroyed by the immediate interposition of God Himself, as in the case of death, separation, incurable disease, &c. Under any of the above circumstances, we have the sure promise of God, "As thy days are, so shall thy strength be." The lost and mourned happiness will not be allowed to deprive us of the powers of rejoicing in hope, and serving God in peace; also of diffusing around us the cheerfulness and contentment which is one of the most important of our Christian duties. These privileges, however, we must not expect to enjoy, if, by a mistaken unselfishness, (often deeply stained with pride,) we sacrifice to another the happiness that lay in our own path, and which may, in reality, be prejudicial to them, as it was not intended for them by Providence: while, on the contrary, it may have been by the same Providence intended for us as the necessary drop of sweetness in the otherwise overpowering bitterness of our earthly cup.

We take, as it were, the disposal of our fate out of the hands of God as much when we refuse the happiness He sends us as when we turn aside from the path of duty on account of some rough passage we see there before us. Good and evil both come from the hands of the Lord. We should be watchful to receive every thing exactly in the way He sees it fit for us.

Experience, as well as theory, confirms the truth of the above assertions. Consider even your own case with relation to any sacrifice of your own real happiness to the supposed happiness of another. I can imagine this possible even in a selfish disposition, not yet hardened. Your good-nature, warm feelings, and pride (in you a powerfully actuating principle) may have at times induced you to make, in moments of excitement, sacrifices of which you have not fully "counted the cost." Let us, then, examine this point in relation to yourself, and to the petty sacrifices of daily life. If you have allowed others to encroach too much on your time, if you have given up to them your innocent pleasures, your improving pursuits, and favourite companions, has this indulgence of their selfishness really added to their happiness? Has it not rather been unobserved, except so far to increase the unreasonableness of their expectations from you, to make them angry when it at last becomes necessary to resist their advanced encroachments? On your own side, too, has it not rather tended to irritate you against people whom you formerly liked, because you are suffering from the daily and hourly pressure of the sacrifices you have imprudently made for them? Believe me, there can be no peace or happiness in domestic life without a bien entendu self-love, which will be found by intelligent experience to be a preservative from selfishness, instead of a manifestation of it.

From all that I have already said, you will, I hope, infer that I am not likely to recommend any extravagant social sacrifices, or to bring you in guilty of selfishness for actions not really deserving of the name. Indeed, I have said so much on the other side, that I may now have some difficulty in proving that, while defending self-love, I have not been defending you. We must therefore go back to my former definition of selfishness—namely, a seeking for ourselves that which is not our real good, to the neglect of all consideration for that which is the real good of others. This is viewing the subject an grand,—a very general definition, indeed, but not a vague one, for all the following illustrations from the minor details of life may clearly be referred under this head.

These are the sort of illustrations I always prefer—they come home so much more readily to the heart and mind. Will not some of the following come home to you? The indulgence of your indolence by sending a tired person on a message when you are very well able to go yourself—sending a servant away from her work which she has to finish within a certain time—keeping your maid standing to bestow much more than needful decoration on your dress, hair, &c., at a time when she is weak or tired—driving one way for your own mere amusement, when it is a real inconvenience to your companion not to go another—expressing or acting on a disinclination to accompany your friend or sister when she cannot go alone—refusing to give up a book that is always within your reach to another who may have only this opportunity of reading it—walking too far or too fast, to the serious annoyance of a tired or delicate companion—refusing, or only consenting with ill-humour, to write a letter, or to do a piece of work, or to entertain a visitor, or to pay a visit, when the person whose more immediate business it is, has, from want of time, and not from idleness or laziness, no power to do what she requests of you—dwelling on all the details of a painful subject, for the mere purpose of giving vent to and thus relieving your own feelings, though it may be by the harrowing up of those of others who are less able to bear it. All these are indeed trifles—but

Trifles make the sum of human things,[45]

and are sure to occur every day, and to form the character into such habits as will fit or unfit it for great proofs of unselfishness, should such be ever called for. Besides, it is on trifles such as these that the smoothness of "the current of domestic joy" depends. It is a smoothness that is easily disturbed: do not let your hand be the one to do it.

In all the trifling instances of selfishness above enumerated, I have generally supposed that a request has been made to you, and that you have not the trouble of finding out the exact manner in which you can conquer selfishness for the advantage of your neighbour. I must now, however, remind you that one of the penalties incurred by past indulgence in selfishness is this, that those who love you will not continue to make those requests which you have been in the habit of refusing, or, if you ever complied with them, of reminding the obliged person, from time to time, how much serious inconvenience your compliance has subjected you to. This, I fear, may have been your habit; for selfish people exaggerate so much every "little" (by "the good man") "nameless, unremembered act," that they never consider them gratefully enough impressed on the heart of the receiver without frequent reminders from themselves. If such has been the case, you must not expect the frank, confiding request, the entire trust in your willingness to make any not unreasonable sacrifice, with which the unselfish are gratified and rewarded, and for which perhaps you often envy them, though you would not take the trouble to deserve the same confidence yourself. Even should you now begin the attempt, and begin it in all earnestness, it will take some time to establish your new character. En attendant, you must be on the watch for opportunities of obliging others, for they will not be freely offered to you; you must now exercise your own observation to find out what they would once have frankly told you,—whether you are tiring people physically or distressing them morally, or putting them to practical inconvenience. I do not make the extravagant supposition that all those with whom you associate have attained to Christian perfection; the proud and the resentful, as well as the delicate-minded, will suffer much rather than repeat appeals to your unselfishness which have often before been disregarded. They may exercise the Christian duty of forgiveness in other ways, but this is the most difficult of all. Few can attain to it, and you must not hope it.

Finally; I wish to warn you against believing those who tell you that such minute analysis of motives, such scrutiny into the smallest details of daily conduct, has a tendency to produce an unhealthy self-consciousness. This might, indeed, be true, if the original state of your nature, before the examination began, were a healthy one. "If Adam had always remained in Paradise, there would have been no anatomy and no metaphysics:" as it is not so, we require both. Sin has entered the world, and death by sin; and therefore it is that both soul and body require a care and a minute watchfulness that cannot, in the present state of things, originate either disease or sin. They have both existed before.

No one ever became or can become selfish by a prayerful examination into the fact of being so or not. In matters of mere feeling, it is indeed dangerous to scrutinize too narrowly the degree and the nature of our emotions. We have no standard by which to try them. If a medical man cannot be trusted to ascertain correctly the state of his own pulse, how much more difficult is it for the amateur to sit in judgment on the strength and number of the pulsations of his own heart and mind.

The case is quite different when feelings manifest themselves in overt acts: then they become of a nature requiring and susceptible of minute analyzation. This is the self-scrutiny I recommend to you.

May you be led to seek earnestly for help from above to overcome the hydra of selfishness, and may you be encouraged, by that freely offered help, to exert your own energies to the utmost!

Let me urge on your especial attention the following verses from the Bible on the subjects which we have been considering. If you selected each one of these for a week's practice, making it at once a question, a warning, and a direction, it would be a tangible, so to speak, use of the Holy Scriptures, that has been found profitable to many:—

"We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. Even Christ pleased not himself."[46]

"The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister."[47]

"He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."[48]

"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."[49]

"Let all your things be done with charity."[50]

"By love serve one another."[51]

"But as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another."[52]

"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth."[53]

"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."[54]

"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."[55]

FOOTNOTES:

[40] Archdeacon Manning.

[41] See Bishop Butler's Sermons.

[42] 1 Cor. vi. 20.

[43] Acts iv. 28.

[44] Coleridge's Aids to Reflection.

[45] Hannah More.

[46] Rom. xv. 1, 2, 3.

[47] Matt. xx. 28.

[48] 2 Cor. v. 15.

[49] Phil. ii. 4.

[50] 1 Cor. xvi. 14.

[51] Gal. v. 13.

[52] Thess. iv. 9.

[53] 1 John iii. 18.

[54] Rom. xiii. 9, 10.

[55] Matt. vii. 12.



LETTER VI.

SELF-CONTROL.

You will probably think it strange that I should consider it necessary to address you, of all others, upon the subject of self-control,—you who are by nature so placid and gentle, so dignified and refined, that you have never been known to display any of the outbreaks of temper which sometimes disgrace the conduct of your companions.

You compare yourself with others, and probably cannot help admiring your superiority. You have, besides, so often listened to the assurances of your friends that your temper is one that cannot be disturbed, that you may think self-control the very last point to which your attention needed to be directed. Self-control, however, has relation to many things besides mere temper. In your case I readily believe that to be of singular sweetness, though even in your case the temper itself may still require self-control. You will esteem it perhaps a paradox when I tell you that the very causes which preserve your temper in an external state of equability, your refinement of mind, your self-respect, your delicate reserve, your abhorrence of every thing unfeminine and ungraceful, may produce exactly the contrary effect on your feelings, and provoke internally a great deal of contempt and dislike for those whose conduct transgresses from your exalted ideas of excellence.

On your own account you would not allow any unkind word to express such feelings as I have described, but you cannot or do not conceal them in the expression of your features, in the very tones of your voice. You further allow them free indulgence in the depths of your heart; in its secret recesses you make no allowances for the inferiority of people so differently constituted, educated, and disciplined from yourself,—people whom, instead of despising and avoiding, you ought certainly to pity, and, if possible, to sympathize with.

In this respect, therefore, the control which I recommend to you has reference even to your much vaunted temper, for though any outward display of ill-breeding and petulance might be much more opposed to your respect for yourself, any inward indulgence of the same feelings must be equally displeasing in the sight of God, and nearly as prejudicial to the passing on of your spirit towards being "perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."[56]

Besides, though there may be no outbreak of ill-temper at the time your annoyance is excited, nor any external manifestation of contempt even in your expressive countenance, you will certainly be unable to preserve kindness and respect of manner towards those whose errors and failings are not met by internal self-control. You will be contemptuously heedless of the assertions of those whose prevarication you have even once experienced; those who have once taunted you with obligation will never be again allowed to confer a favour upon you; you will avoid all future intercourse with those whose unkind and taunting words have wounded your refinement and self-respect. All this would contribute to the formation of a fine character in a romance, for every thing that I have spoken of implies your own truth and honesty, your generous nature, your delicate and sensitive habits of mind, your dread of inflicting pain. For all these admirable qualities I give you full credit, and, as I said before, they would make an heroic character in a romance. In real life, however, they, every one of them, require strict self-control to form either a Christian character, or one that will confer peace and happiness. You may be all that I have described, and I believe you to be so, while, at the same time your severe judgments and unreasonable expectations may be productive of unceasing discomfort to yourself and all around you. Your friends plainly see that you expect too much from them, that you are annoyed when their duller perceptions can discover no grounds for your annoyance, that you decline their offers of service when they are not made in exactly the refined manner your imagination requires. Your annoyance may seldom or never express itself in words, but it is nevertheless perceptible in the restraint of your manner, in your carelessness of sympathy on any point with those who generally differ from you, in the very tone of your voice, in the whole character of your conversation. Gradually the gulf becomes wider and wider that separates you from those among whom it has pleased God that your lot should be cast.

You cannot yet be at all sensible of the dangers I am now pointing out to you. You cannot yet understand the consequences of your present want of self-control in this particular point. The light of the future alone can waken them out of present darkness into distinct and fatal prominence.

Habit has not yet formed into an isolating chain that refinement of mind and loftiness of character which your want of self-control may convert into misfortunes instead of blessings. Whenever, even now, a sense of total want of sympathy forces itself upon you, you console yourself with such thoughts as these: "Sheep herd together, eagles fly alone,"[57]&c.

Small consolation this, even for the pain your loneliness inflicts on yourself, still less for the breach of duties it involves.

There must, besides, be much danger in a habit of mind that leads you to attribute to your own superiority those very unpleasantnesses which would have no existence if that superiority were more complete. For, in truth, if your spiritual nature asserted its due authority over the animal, you would habitually exercise the power which is freely offered you, of supreme control over the hidden movements of your heart as well as over the outward expression of the lips.

I would strongly urge you to consider every evidence of your isolation—of your want of sympathy with others—as marks of moral inferiority; then, from your conscientiousness of mind, you would seek anxiously to discover the causes of such isolation, and you would endeavour to remove them.

Nothing is more difficult than the perpetual self-control necessary for this purpose. Constant watchfulness is required to subdue every feeling of superiority in the contemplation of your own character, and constant watchfulness to look upon the words and actions of others through, as it were, a rose-coloured medium. The mind of man has been aptly compared to cut glass, which reflects the very same light in various colours as well as different shapes, according to the forms of the glass. Display then the mental superiority of which you are justly conscious, by moulding your mind into such forms as will represent the words and actions of others in the most favourable point of view. The same illustration will serve to suggest the best manner of making allowances for those whose minds are unmanageable, because uneducated and undisciplined. They cannot see things in the same point of view that you do; how unreasonable then is it of you to expect that they should form the same estimate of them.

Let us now enter into the more minute details of this subject, and consider the many opportunities for self-control which may arise in the course of even this one day. I will begin with moral evil.

You may hear falsehoods asserted, you may hear your friend traduced, you may hear unfair and exaggerated statements of the conduct of others, given to the very people with whom they are most anxious to stand well. These are trials to which you may be often exposed, even in domestic life; and their judicious management, the comparative advantages to one's friends or one's self of silence or defence, will require your calmest judgment and your soundest discretion; qualities which of course cannot be brought into action without complete self-control. I can hardly expect, or, indeed, wish that you should hear the falsehoods of which I have spoken without some risings of indignation; these, however, must be subdued for your friend's sake as well as your own. You would think it right to conquer feelings of anger and revenge if you were yourself unjustly accused, and though the other excitement may bear the appearance of more generosity, you must on reflection admit that it is equally your duty to subdue such feelings when they are aroused by the injuries inflicted on a friend. The happy safeguard, the instinctive test, by which the well-regulated and comparatively innocent mind may safely try the right or the wrong of every indignant feeling is this: so far as the feeling is painful, so far is it tainted with sin. To "be angry and sin not,"[58] there must be no pain in the anger: pain and sin cannot be separated: there may indeed be sorrow, but this is to be carefully distinguished from pain. The above is a test which, after close examination and experience, you will find to be a safe and true one. Whenever they are thus safe and true, our instinctive feelings ought to be gratefully made use of; thus even our animal nature may be made to come to the assistance of our spiritual nature, against which it is too often arrayed in successful opposition.

I have spoken of the exceeding difficulty of exercising self-control under such trying circumstances as those above described, and this difficulty will, I candidly confess, be likely to increase in proportion to your own honesty and generosity. Be comforted, however, by this consideration, that, conflict being the only means of forming the character into excellence, and your natural amiability averting from you many of the usual opportunities for exercising self-control, you would be in want of the former essential ingredient in spiritual discipline did not your very virtues procure it for you.

While, however, I allow you full credit for these virtues, I must insist on a careful distinction between a mere virtue and a Christian grace. Every virtue becomes a vice the moment it overpasses its prescribed boundaries, the moment it is given free power to follow the bent of animal nature, instead of being, even though a virtue, kept under the strict control of religious principle.

I must now suggest to you some means by which I have known self-control to be successfully exhibited and perpetuated, with especial reference to that annoyance which we have last considered. Instead, then, of dwelling on the deviations from truth of which I have spoken, even when they are to the injury of a friend, try to banish the subject from your mind and memory; or, if you are able to think of it in the very way you please, try to consider how much the original formation of the speaker's mind, careless habits, and want of any disciplining education, may each and all contribute to lessen the guilt of the person who has annoyed you. No one knows better than yourself that tho original nature of the mind, as well as its implanted habits, modifies every fact presented to its notice. Still further, the point of view from which the fact or the character has been seen may have been entirely different from yours. These other persons may absolutely have seen the thing spoken of in a position so completely unlike your mental vision of it, that they are as incapable of understanding your view as you may be of understanding theirs. If sincere in your wish for improvement, you had better prove the truth of the above assertion by the following process. Take into your consideration any given action, not of a decidedly honourable nature—one which, perhaps, to most people would appear of an indifferent nature,—but to your lofty and refined notions deserving of some degree of reprehension. You have a sufficiently metaphysical head to be able to abstract yourself entirely from your own view of the case, and then you can contemplate it with a total freedom from prejudice. Such a contemplation can only be attempted when no feeling is concerned,—feeling giving life to every peculiarity of moral sentiment, as the heat draws out those characters which would otherwise have passed unknown and unnoticed. I would then have you examine carefully into all the considerations which might qualify and alter, even your own view of the case. Dwell long and carefully upon this part of the process. It is astonishing (incredible indeed until it is tried) how much our opinions of the very same action may alter if we determinately confine ourselves to the favourable aspect in which it may be viewed, keeping the contrary side entirely out of sight.

As soon as this has been carried to the utmost, you must further (that my experiment may be fairly tried) endeavour to throw yourself, in imagination, not only into the position, but also into the natural and acquired mental and moral perceptions of the person whose action you are taking into your consideration. For this purpose you must often imagine—natural dimness of perception, absence of acute sensibility, indifference to wounding the feelings of others from mere carelessness and want of reflective powers, little natural conscientiousness, an entire absence of the taste or the power of metaphysical examination into the effect produced by our actions. All these natural deficiencies, you must further consider, may in this case be increased by a totally neglected education,—first, by the want of parental discipline, and afterwards of that more important self-education which few people have sufficient strength of character to subject themselves to. Lastly, I would have you consider especially the moral atmosphere in which they have habitually breathed: according to the nature of this the mental health varies as certainly as the physical strength varies in a bracing or relaxing air. A strong bodily constitution may resist longer, and finally be less affected by a deleterious atmosphere than a weak or diseased frame; and so it is with the mental constitution. Minds insensibly imbibe the tone of the atmosphere in which they most frequently dwell; and though natural loftiness of character and natural conscientiousness may for a very long period resist such influences, it cannot be expected that inferior natures will be able to do so.

You are then to consider whether the habits of mind and conversation among those who are the constant associates of the persons you blame have been such as to cherish or to deaden keen and refined perceptions of moral excellence and nobility of mind; still further, whether their own literary tastes have created around them an even more penetrating atmosphere; whether from the elevated inspirations of appreciated poetry, from the truthful page of history, or from the stirring excitements of romantic fiction, their heart and their imagination have received those lofty lessons for which you judge them responsible, without knowing whether they have ever received them.

There is still another consideration. While the actions of those who are not habitually under the control of high principle depend chiefly on the physical constitution, as they are too often a mere yielding to the immediate impulse of the senses, their judgment of men and things, on the contrary, when uninfluenced by personal feeling, depend probably more on that keen perception of the beautiful which is the natural instinct of a superior organization. Morality and religion will indeed supply the place of these lofty natural instincts, by giving habits of mind which may in time become so burnt in, as it were, that they assume the form of natural instincts, while they are at once much safer guides and much stronger checks.

It is surprising that a mere sense of the beautiful will often confer the clearest perceptions of the real nature of moral excellence. You may hear the devoted worldling, or the selfish sensualist, giving the highest and most inspiring lessons of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice, and devotedness to God. Their lessons, truthful and impressive, because dictated by a keen and exquisite perception of the beautiful, which ever harmonizes with the precepts and doctrines of Christianity, have kindled in many a heart that living flame, which in their own has been smothered by the fatal homage of the lips and of the feelings only, while the actions of the life were disobedient. Often has such a writer or speaker stood in stern and truthfully severe judgment on the weak "brother in Christ" when he has acted or spoken with an inconsistency which the mere instinct of the beautiful would in his censor have prevented. Such censors, however, ought to remember that these weak brethren, though their instincts be less lofty, their sensibility less acute, live closer to their principles than they themselves do to their feelings; for the moment the natural impulse, in cases where that is the only guide, is enlisted on the side of passion, the perception of the beautiful is entirely sacrificed to the gratification of the senses. When the animal nature comes into collision with the spiritual, the highest dictates of the latter will be unheeded, unless the supremacy of the spiritual nature be habitually maintained in practice as well as in theory. In short, that keen perception of the true and the beautiful, which is an essential ingredient in the formation of a noble character, becomes, in the case of the self-indulgent worldling, only an increase of his responsibility, and a deepening dye to his guilt. At present, however, I suppose you to be sitting in judgment on those who are entirely destitute of the aids and the responsibilities of a keen sense of the beautiful: by nature or by education they know or have learned nothing of it. How different, then, from your own must be their estimate of virtue and duty! Add this, therefore, to all the other allowances you have to make for them, and I will answer for it that any action viewed through this qualifying medium will entirely change its aspect, and your blame will most frequently turn to pity, though of course you can feel neither sympathy nor respect.

On the other hand, the practice of dwelling only on the aggravating circumstances of a case, will magnify into crime a trifling and otherwise easily forgotten error. This is a fact in the mind's history of which few people seem to be aware, and only few may be capable of understanding. Its truth, however, may be easily proved by watching the effect of words in irritating one person against another, and increasing, by repeated insinuations, the apparent malignity of some really trifling action. No one, probably, has led so blessed a life as not to have been sometimes pained by observing one person trying to exasperate another, who is, perhaps, rather peacefully inclined, by pointing out all the aggravating circumstances of some probably imaginary offence, until the listener is wrought up to a state of angry excitement, and induced to look on that as an exaggerated offence which would probably otherwise have passed without notice. What is in this case the effect of another's sin is a state often produced in their own mind by those who would be incapable of the more tangible, and therefore more evidently sinful act of exciting the anger of one friend or relative against another.

The sin of which I speak is peculiarly likely to be that of a thoughtful, reflective, and fastidious person like yourself. It is therefore to you of the utmost importance to acquire, and to acquire at once, complete control over your thoughts,—first, carefully ascertaining which those are that you ought to avoid, and then guarding as carefully against such as if they were the open semblance of positive sin. This is really the only means by which a truthful and candid nature like your own can ever maintain the deportment of Christian love and charity towards those among whom your lot is cast. You must resolutely shut your eyes against all that is unlovely in their character. If you suffer your thoughts to dwell for a moment on such subjects, you will find additional difficulty afterwards in forcing them away from that which is their natural tendency, besides having probably created a feeling against which it will be vain to struggle. It is one of the strongest reasons for the necessity of watchful self-control, that no mind, however powerful, can exercise a direct authority over the feelings of the heart; they are susceptible of indirect influence alone. This much increases the necessity of our watchfulness as to the indirect tendencies of thoughts and words, and our accountability with respect to them. Our anxiety and vigilance ought to be altogether greater than if we could exercise over our feelings that direct and instantaneous control which a strong mind can always assert in the case of words and actions.

Unless the indirect influence of which I have spoken were practicable, the warnings and commands of Scripture would be a mockery of our weakness,—a cruel satire on the helplessness of a victim whose efforts to fulfil duty must, however strenuous, prove unavailing. The child is commanded to honour his parent, the wife to reverence her husband; and you are to observe attentively that there is no exception made for the cases of those whose parents or husbands are undeserving of love and reverence. There must, then, be a power granted, to such as ask and strive to acquire it, of closing the mental eyes resolutely against those features in the character of the persons to whom we are bound by the ties of duty, which would unfit us, if much dwelt upon, for obedience in such important particulars as the love and reverence we are commanded to feel towards them.

Even where there is such high principle and such uncommon strength of character as to induce perseverance in the mere external forms of obedience, how vain are all such while the heart has turned aside from the appointed path of duty, and broken those commands of God which, we should always remember, have reference to feeling as well as to action:—"Honour thy father and thy mother;"[59] "Let the wife see that she reverence her husband."[60]

In the habitual exercise of that self-control which I now urge upon you, you will experience an ample fulfilment of that promise,—"The work of righteousness shall be peace."[61] Instead of becoming daily further and further severed from those who are indeed your inferiors, but towards whom God has imposed duties upon you, you will daily find that, in proportion to the difficulty of the task, will be the sweetness and the peace rewarding its fulfilment. No affection resulting from the most perfect sympathy of mind and heart will ever confer so deep a pleasure, or so holy a peace, as the blind, unquestioning, "unsifting"[62] tenderness which a strong principle of duty has cherished into existence.

Glorious in every way will be the final result to those who are capable (alas! few are so) of such a course of conduct. Far different in its effects from the blind tenderness of infatuated passion is the noble blindness of Christian self-control. While the one warms into existence, or at least into open manifestation, all the selfishness and wilfulness of the fondled plaything, the other creates a thousand virtues that were not known before. Flowers spring up from the hardest rocks, the coldest, sternest natures are gradually softened into gentleness, the faults of temper or of character that never meet with worrying opposition, or exercise unforgiving influence, gradually die away, and fade from the memory of both. The very atmosphere alone of such rare and lovely self-control seems to have a moral influence resembling the effects of climate upon the rude and rugged marble,—every roughness is by degrees smoothed away, and even the colouring becomes subdued into calm harmony with all the features of its allotted position.

To the rarity of the virtue upon which I have so long dwelt, we may trace the cause of almost all the domestic unhappiness we witness whenever the veil is withdrawn from the secrets of home. Alas! how often is this blessed word only the symbol of freely-indulged ill-tempers, unresisted selfishness, or, perhaps the most dangerous of all, exacting and unforgiving requirements. While the one party select their home as the only scene where they may safely and freely vent their caprices and ill-humours, the other require a stricter compliance with their wishes, a more exact conformity with their pursuits and opinions, than they meet with even from the temporary companions of their lighter hours. They forget that these companions have only to exert themselves for a short time for their gratification, and that they can then retire to their own home, probably to be as disagreeable there as the relations of whom the others complain. For then the mask is off, and they are at liberty,—yes, at liberty,—freed from the inspection and the judgments of the world, and only exposed to those of God!

My friend, I am sure you have often shared in the pain and grief I feel, that in so few cases should home be the blessed, peaceful spot that poetry pictures to us. There is no real poetry that is not truth in its purest form—truth as it appears to eyes from which the mists of sense are cleared away. Surely our earthly homes ought to realize the representations of poetry; they would then become each day a nearer, though ever a faint type of, that eternal home for which our earthly one ought daily to prepare us.

Poetry and religion always teach the same duties, instil the same feelings. Never believe that any thing can be truly noble or great, that any thing can be really poetical, which is not also religious. The poet is now partly a priest, as he was in the old heathen world; and though, alas! he may, like Balaam, utter inspirations which his heart follows not, which his life denies, yet, like Balaam also, his words are full of lessons for us, though they may only make his own guilt the deeper.

I have been led to these concluding considerations respecting poetry by my anxiety that you should turn your refined tastes and your acute perceptions of the beautiful to a universally moral purpose. There is no teaching more impressive than that which comes to us through our passions. In the moment of excited feeling stronger impressions may be made than by any of the warnings of duty and principle. If these latter, however, be not motives co-existent, and also in strength and exercise, the impressions of feeling are temporary, and even dangerous. It is only to the faithful followers of duty that the excitements of romance and poetry are useful and improving. To such they have often given strength and energy to tread more cheerfully and hopefully over many a rugged path, to live more closely to their beau-ideal, a vivid vision of which has, by poetry, been awakened and refreshed in their hearts.

To others, on the contrary, the danger exceeds the profit. By the excitement of admiration they may be deceived into the belief that there must be in their own bosoms an answering spirit to the greatness, the self-sacrifice, the pure and lofty affections they see represented in the mirror of poetry. They are deceived, because they forget that we have each within us two natures struggling for the mastery. As long as we practically allow the habitual supremacy of the lower over the higher, there can be no real excellence in the character, however a mere sense of the beautiful may temporarily exalt the feelings, and thus increase our responsibility, and consequent condemnation.

I am sure you have experimentally understood the subject on which I have been writing. I am sure you have often risen from the teaching of the poet with enthusiasm in your heart, ready to trample upon all those temptations and difficulties which had, perhaps an hour before, made the path of self-denial and self-control apparently impracticable.

Receive such intervals of excitement as heaven-sent aids, to help you more easily over, it may be, a wearying and dreary path. They are most probably sent in answer to prayer—in answer to the prayers of your own heart, or to those of some pious friend.

Our Father in heaven works constantly by earthly means, and moulds the weakest, the often apparently useless instrument to the furtherance of his purposes of mercy, one of which you know is your own sanctification. It is not his holy word only that gives you appointed messages and helps exactly suited to your need. The flower growing by the way-side, the picture or the poem, the works of God's own hand, or the works of the genius which he has breathed into his creature Man, may all alike bear you messages of love, of warning, of assistance.

Listen attentively, and you will hear—clearer still and clearer—every day and hour. It is not by chance you take up that book, or gaze upon that picture; you have found, because you are on the watch for it, in the first, a suggestion that exactly suits your present need, in the latter an excitement and an inspiration which makes some difficult action you may be immediately called on to perform comparatively easy and comparatively welcome.

There is a deep and universal meaning in the vulgar[63] proverb, "Strike while the iron is hot." If it be left to cool without your purpose being effected, the iron becomes harder than ever, the chains of nature and of habit are more firmly riveted.

There are some other features of self-control to which I wish, though more cursorily, to direct your attention. They have all some remote bearing on your moral nature, and may exercise much influence over your prospects in life.

Like many other persons of a refined and sensitive organization, you suffer from the very uncommon disease of shyness. At the very time, perhaps, when you desire most to please, to interest, to amuse, your over-anxiety defeats its own object. The self-possession of the indifferent generally carries off the palm from the earnest and the anxious. This is ridiculous; this is degrading. What you wish to do you ought to be able to do, and you will be able, if you habitually exercise control over the physical feelings of your nature.

I am quite of the opinion of those who hold that shyness is a bodily as well as a mental disease, much influenced by our state of health, as well as by the constitutional state of the circulation; but I only put forward this opinion respecting its origin as additional evidence that it too may be brought under the authority of self-control. If the grace of God, giving efficacy and help to our own exertions, can enable us to resist the influence of indigestion and other kinds of ill-health upon the temper and the spirits, will not the same means be found effectual to subdue a shyness which almost sinks us to the level of the brute creation by depriving us of the advantages of a rational will? Even this latter distinguishing feature of humanity is prostrated before the mysterious power of shyness.

You understand, doubtless, the wide distinction that exists between modesty and shyness. Modesty is always self-possessed, and therefore clear-sighted and cool-headed. Shyness, on the contrary, is too confused either to see or hear things as they really are, and as often assumes the appearance of forwardness as any other disguise. Depriving its victims of the power of being themselves, it leaves them little freedom of choice, as to the sort of imitations the freaks of their animal nature may lead them to attempt. You feel, with deep annoyance, that a paroxysm of shyness has often made you speak entirely at random, and express the very opposite sentiments to those you really feel, committing yourself irretrievably to, perhaps, falsehood and folly, because you could not exercise self-control. Try to bring vividly before your mental eye all that you have suffered in the recollection of past weaknesses of this kind, and that will give you energy and strength to struggle habitually, incessantly, against every symptom of so painful a disease. It is, at first, only the smaller ones that can be successfully combated; after the strength acquired by perseverance in lesser efforts, you may hope to overcome your powerful enemy in his very stronghold.

Even in the quietest family life many opportunities will be offered you of combat and of victory. False shame, the fear of being laughed at now, or taunted afterwards, will often keep you silent when you ought to speak; and you ought to speak very often for no other than the sufficient reason of accustoming yourself to disregard the hampering feeling of "What will people say?" "What do I expose myself to by making this observation?" Follow the impulses of your own noble and generous nature, speak the words it dictates, and then you may and ought to trample under foot the insinuations of shyness, as to the judgments which others may pass upon you.

You may observe that those censors who make a coward of you can always find something to say in blame of every action, some taunt with which to reflect upon every word. Do not, then, suffer yourself to be hampered by the dread of depreciating remarks being made upon your conversation or your conduct. Such fears are one of the most general causes of shyness. You must not suffer your mind to dwell upon them, except to consider that taunting and depreciating remarks may and will be made on every course of conduct you may pursue, on every word you or others may speak.

I have myself been cured of any shackling anxiety as to "What will people say?" by a long experience of the fact, that the remarks of the gossip are totally irrespective of the conduct or the conversation they gossip over. That which is blamed one moment, is highly extolled the next, when the necessity of depreciating contrast requires the change; and as for the inconsequence of the remarks so rapidly following each other, the gossip is "thankful she has not an argumentative head." She is, therefore, privileged one moment to contradict the inevitable consequences of the assertions made the moment before.

You cannot avoid such criticisms; brave them nobly. The more you disregard them, the more true will you be to yourself, the more free will you be from that shyness which, though partly the result of keen and acute perceptions and refined sensibilities, has besides a large share of over-anxious vanity and deeply-rooted pride.

Do not believe those who tell you that shyness will decrease of itself, as you advance in age, and mix more in the world. There is, indeed, a species of shyness which may thus be removed; but it is not that which arises from a morbid refinement. This latter species, unguarded by habitual self-control, will, on the contrary, rather increase than decrease, as further experience shows you the numerous modes of failure, the thousand tender points in which you may be assailed by the world without.

Be assured that your only hope of safety is in an early and persevering struggle, accompanied by faith in final victory,—without that who can have strength for conflict? Do not treat your boasted intellect so depreciatingly as to doubt its power of giving you successful aid in your triumph over difficulties. What has been done may be done again,—why not by you?

Nothing is more interesting (and also imposing) than to see a strong mind evidently struggling against, and obtaining a victory over, the shyness of its animal nature. The appreciative observer pays it, at the same time, the involuntary homage which always attends success, and the still deeper respect due to those who having been thus "Caesar unto themselves,"[64] are also sure, in time, to conquer all external things.

In conclusion, I must remind you that your life has, as yet, flowed on in a smooth and untroubled course, so that you cannot from experience be at all aware of the much greater future necessity there may be for those habits of self-control which I am now urging upon you. But though no overwhelming shocks, no stunning surprises, have, as yet, disturbed the "even tenor of your way," it cannot be always thus. Alas! the time must come when sorrows will pour in upon you like a flood, when you will be called upon for rapid decisions, for far-sighted and comprehensive arrangements, for various exercises of the coolest, calmest judgment, at the very moment that present anguish and anxiety for the future are raising whirlwinds of clouds around your mental vision. If you are not now acquiring the power of self-control in minor affairs by managing them judiciously under circumstances of trifling excitement or disturbance, how will you be able to act your part with skill and courage, when the hours of real trial overtake you? A character like yours, as it possesses the power, so likewise is it responsible for the duty of moving on steadily through moral clouds and storms, seeing clearly, resisting firmly, and uninfluenced by any motives but those suggested by your higher nature.

The passing shadow, or the gleam of sunshine, the half-expressed sneer, or the tempests of angry passion, the words of love and flattery, or the cruel insinuations of envy and jealousy, may pale your cheek, or call into it a deeper flush; may kindle your eye with indignation, or melt its rays in sorrow; but they must not, for all that, turn you aside one step from the path which your calm and deliberate judgment had before marked out for you: your insensibility to such annoyances as those I have described would show an unfeminine hardness of character; your being influenced by them would strengthen into habit any natural unfitness for the high duties you may probably be called on to fulfil. When in future years you may be appealed to, by those who depend on you alone, for guidance, for counsel, for support in warding off, or bearing bravely, dangers, difficulties, and sorrows, you will have cause for bitter repentance if you are unable to answer such appeals; nor can you answer them successfully unless, in the present hours of comparative calm, you are, in daily trifles, habituating yourself to the exercise of self-control. Every day thus wasted now will in future cause you years of unavailing regret.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] Matt. v. 48.

[57] Sir Philip Sidney.

[58] Eph. iv. 26.

[59] Ex. xx. 12.

[60] Eph. v. 33.

[61] Isa. xxxii. 17.

[62]

Maria. How can we love?—

Giovanna (interrupting). Mainly, by hearing none Decry the object, then by cherishing The good we see in it, and overlooking What is less pleasant in the paths of life. All have some virtue if we leave it them In peace and quiet, all may lose some part By sifting too minutely good and bad. The tenderer and the timider of creatures Often desert the brood that has been handled, Or turned about, or indiscreetly looked at. The slightest touches, touching constantly, Irritate and inflame.

LANDOR'S Giovanna and Andrea.

[63] Miss Edgeworth says that proverbs are vulgar because they are common sense.

[64] Emerson.



LETTER VII.

ECONOMY.

Perhaps there is no lesson that needs to be more watchfully and continually impressed on the young and generous heart than the difficult one of economy. There is no virtue that in such natures requires more vigilant self-control and self-denial, besides the exercise of a free judgment, uninfluenced by the excitement of feeling.

To you this virtue will be doubly difficult, because you have so long watched its unpleasant manifestations in a distorted form. You are exposed to danger from that which has perverted many notions of right and wrong; you have so long heard things called by false names that you are inclined to turn away in disgust from a noble reality. You have been accustomed to hear the name of economy given to penuriousness and meanness, so that now, the wounded feelings and the refined tastes of your nature having been excited to disgust by this system of falsehood, you will find it difficult to realize in economy a virtue that joins to all the noble instincts of generosity the additional features of strong-minded self-control.

It will therefore be necessary, before I endeavour to impress upon your mind the duty and advantages of economy, that I should previously help you to a clear understanding of the real meaning of the word itself.

The difficulty of forming a true and distinct conception of the virtue thus denominated is much increased by its being equally misrepresented by two entirely opposite parties. The avaricious, those to whom the expenditure of a shilling costs a real pang of regret, claim for their mean vice the honour of a virtue that can have no existence, unless the same pain and the same self-control were exercised in withholding, as with them would be exercised in giving. On the other hand, the extravagant, sometimes wilfully, sometimes unconsciously, fall into the same error of applying to the noble self-denial of economy the degrading misnomers of avarice, penuriousness, &c.

It is indeed possible that the avaricious may become economical,—after first becoming generous, which is an absolutely necessary preliminary. That which is impossible with man is possible with God, and who may dare to limit his free grace? This, however, is one of the wonders I have never yet witnessed. It seems indeed that the love of money is so literally the "root of all evil,"[65] that there is no room in the heart where it dwells for any other growth, for any thing lovely or excellent. The taint is universal, and while much that is amiable and interesting may originally exist in characters containing the seeds of every other vice, (however in time overshadowed and poisoned by such neighbourhood,) it would seem that "the love of money" always reigns in sovereign desolation, admitting no warm or generous feeling into the heart which it governs. Such, however, you will at once deny to be the case of those from whose penuriousness your early years have suffered; you know that their character is not thus bare of virtues. But do not for this contradict my assertion; theirs was not always innate love of money for its own sake, though at length they may have unfortunately learned to love it thus, which is the true test of avarice. It has, on the contrary, been owing to the faults of others, to their having long experienced the deprivations attendant on a want of money, that they have acquired the habit of thinking the consciousness of its possession quite as enjoyable as the powers and the pleasures its expenditure bestows. They know too well the pain of want of money, but have never learned that the real pleasure of its possession consists in its employment.[66] It is only from habit, only from perverted experience, that they are avaricious, therefore I at once exonerate them from the charges I have brought against those whose very nature it is to love money for its own sake. At the same time the strong expressions I have made use of respecting these latter, may, I hope, serve to obviate the suspicion that I have any indulgence for so despicable a vice, and may induce you to expect an unprejudiced statement of the merits and the duty of economy.

It is carefully to be remembered that the excess of every natural virtue becomes a vice, and that these apparently opposing qualities are only divided from each other by almost insensible boundaries. The habitual exercise of strong self-control can alone preserve even our virtues from degenerating into sin, and a clear-sightedness as to the very first step of declension must be sought for by self-denial on our own part, and by earnest prayer for the assisting graces of the Holy Spirit, to search the depths of our heart, and open our eyes to see.

Thus it is that the free and generous impulses of a warm and benevolent nature, though in themselves among the loveliest manifestations of the merely natural character, will and necessarily must degenerate into extravagance and self-indulgence, unless they are kept vigilantly and constantly under the control of prudence and justice. And this, if you consider the subject impartially, is fully as much the case when these generous impulses are not exercised alone in procuring indulgences for one's friends or one's self, but even when they excite you to the relief of real suffering and pitiable distress.

This last is, indeed, one of the severest trials of the duty of economy; but that it is a part of that duty to resist even such temptations, will be easily ascertained if you consider the subject coolly,—that is, if you consider it when your feelings are not excited by the sight of a distressed object, whose situation may be readily altered by some of that money which you think, and think justly, is only useful, only enjoyable, in the moment of expenditure.

The trial is, I confess, a difficult one: it is best the decision with respect to it should be made when your feelings are excited on the opposite side, when some useful act of charity to the poor has incapacitated you from meeting the demands of justice.

I am sure your memory, ay, and your present experience too, can furnish you with some cases of this kind. It may be that the act of generosity was a judicious and a useful one, that the suffering would have been great if you had not performed it; but, on the other hand, it has disabled you from paying some bills that you knew at the very time were lawfully due as the reward of honest labour, which had trusted to your honour that this reward should be punctually paid. You have a keen sense of justice as well as a warm glow of generosity; one will serve to temper the other. Let the memory of every past occasion of this kind be deeply impressed, not only on your mind but on your heart, by frequent reflection on the painful thoughts that then forced themselves upon you,—the distress of those upon whose daily labour the daily maintenance of their family depends, the collateral distress of the artisans employed by them, whom they cannot pay because you cannot pay, the degradation to your own character, from the experience of your creditors that you have expended that which was in fact not your own, the diminished, perhaps for ever injured, confidence which they and all who become acquainted with the circumstances will place in you, and, finally, the probability that you have deprived some honest, industrious, self-denying tradesman of his hardly-earned dues, to bestow the misnamed generosity upon some object of distress, who, however real the distress may be now, has probably deserved it by a deficiency in all those good qualities which maintain in respectability your defrauded creditor. The very character, too, of your creditor may suffer by your inability to pay him, for he, miscalculating on your honesty and truthfulness, may, on his side, have engaged to make payments which become impossible for him, when you fail in your duty, in which case you can scarcely calculate how far the injury to him may extend; becoming a more permanent and serious evil than his incapacity to answer those daily calls upon him of which I have before spoken. In short, if you will try to bring vividly before you all the painful feelings that passed through your mind, and all the contingencies that were contemplated by you on any one of these occasions, you will scarcely differ from me when I assert my belief that the name of dishonesty would be a far more correct word than that of generosity to apply to such actions as the above: you are, in fact, giving away the money of another person, depriving him of his property, his time, or his goods, under false pretences, and, in addition to this, appropriating to yourself the pleasure of giving, which surely ought to belong by right to those to whom the gift belongs.

I have here considered one of the most trying cases, one in which the withholding of your liberality becomes a really difficult duty, so difficult that the opportunity should be avoided as much as possible; and it is for this very purpose that the science of economy should be diligently studied and practised, that so "you may have to give to him that needeth," without taking away that which is due to others. Probably in most of the cases to which I have referred your memory, some previous acts of self-denial would have saved you from being tempted to the sin of giving away the property of another. I would not willingly suppose that an act of self-denial at the very time you witnessed the case of distress might have provided you with the means of satisfying both generosity and honesty, for, as I said before, I know you to have a keen sense of justice; and though you have never yet been vigilant enough in the practice of economy, I cannot believe that, with an alternative before you, you would indulge in any personal expenditure, even bearing the appearance of almost necessity, that would involve a failure in the payment of your debts. I speak, then, only of acts of previous self-denial, and I wish you to be persuaded, that unless these are practised habitually and incessantly you can never be truly generous. A readiness to give that which costs you nothing, that which is so truly a superfluity that it involves no sacrifice, is a mere animal instinct, as selfish perhaps, though more refinedly so than any other species of self-indulgence. Generosity is a nobler quality, and one that can have no real existence without economy and self-denial.