not understood, perhaps because he falls so short of his own ideals.
Often he does not find kindred spirits anywhere. I do not think we
should drive such a man into conditions that hurt, but I do believe that
if he is truly artistic, and not a snob, he may lead himself into a
larger social life without too much sacrifice.
The sensitive, high-strung spirit that does not give of its own best
qualities to the world of its acquaintance, that does not express itself
in some concrete way, is always in danger of harm. Such a spirit turned
in upon itself is a consuming fire. The spirit will burn a long time and
suffer much if it does not use its heat to warm and comfort the world of
need.
Real illness makes the nervous temperament a much more formidable
difficulty--all the sensitive faculties are more sensitive--irritability
becomes an obsession and idleness a terror.
The nervous temperament under irritation is very prone to become
selfish--and very likely to hide behind this selfishness, calling it
temperament. The man who flies into a passion when he is disturbed, or
who spends his days in torment from the noises of the street; the woman
of high attainment who has retired into herself, who is moody and
unresponsive,--these unfortunates have virtually built a wall about
their lives, a wall which shuts out the world of life and happiness.
From the walls of this prison the sounds of discord and annoyance are
thrown back upon the prisoner intensified and multiplied. The wall is
real enough in its effect, but will cease to exist when the prisoner
begins to go outside, when he begins to realize his selfishness and his
mistake. Then the noises and the irritations will be lost in the wider
world that is open to him. After all, it is only through unselfish
service in the world of men that this broadening can come.
There is no lack of opportunity for service. Perhaps the simplest and
most available form of service is charity,--the big, professional kind,
of course,--and beyond that the greater field of intimate and personal
charity. I know a girl of talent and ability--herself a nervous
invalid--sick and helpless for the lack of a little money which would
give her a chance to get well. I do not mean money for luxuries, for
foolish indulgences, but money to buy opportunity--money that would lift
her out of the heavy morass of poverty and give her a chance. She falls
outside the beaten path of charity. She is not reached by the usual
philanthropies. I also know plenty of people who could help that girl
without great sacrifice. They will not do it because they give money to
the regular charities--they will not do it because sometimes generosity
has been abused. So they miss the chance of broadening and developing
their own lives.
I know well enough that objective interest can rarely be forced--it
must usually come the other way about--through the broadening of life
which makes it inevitable. Sometimes I wish I could force that kind of
development, that kind of charity. Sometimes I long to take the rich
neurasthenic and make him help his brother, make him develop a new art
that shall save people from sorrow and loss. We are all together in this
world, and all kin; to recognize it and to serve the needs of the
unfortunate as we would serve our own children is the remedy for many
ills. It is the new art, the final and greatest of all artistic
achievements; it warms our hearts and opens our lives to all that is
wholesome and good. This is one of the crises in which my theory of
"inspiration first" may fail. Here the charity may have to come first,
may have to be insisted upon before there can be any inspiration or any
further joy in life. It is not always charity in the usual sense that is
required; sometimes the charity that gives something besides money is
best. But charity in any good sense means self-forgetfulness, and that
is a long way on the road to nervous health. Give of yourself, give of
your substance, and you will cease to be troubled with the penalties of
selfishness. Then take the next step--that gives not because life has
come back, but because the world has become larger and warmer and
happier. When the giver gives of his sympathy and of his means because
he wants to,--not because he has to do so,--he will begin to know what I
mean when I say it is better to have the inspiration first.
VII
SELF-CONTROL
He only earns his freedom and existence
Who daily conquers them anew.
GOETHE.
A good many writers on self-control and kindred subjects insist that we
shall conscientiously and consciously govern our mental lives. They say,
"You must get up in the morning with determination to be cheerful." They
insist that in spite of annoyance or trouble you shall keep a smiling
face, and affirm to yourself over and over again the denial of
annoyance.
I do not like this kind of self-control. I wish I could admire it and
approve it, but I find I cannot because it seems to me self-conscious
and superficial. It is better than nothing and unquestionably adds
greatly to the sum of human happiness. But I do not think we ought to be
cheerful if we are consumed with trouble and sorrow. The fact is we
ought not to be for long beyond a natural cheerfulness that comes from
the deepest possible sources. While we are sad, let us be so, simply and
naturally; but we must pray that the light may come to us in our sorrow,
that we may be able soon and naturally to put aside the signs of
mourning.
The person who thinks little of his own attitude of mind is more likely
to be well controlled and to radiate happiness than one who must
continually prompt himself to worthy thoughts. The man whose heart is
great with understanding of the sorrow and pathos of life is far more
apt to be brave and fine in his own trouble than one who must look to a
motto or a formula for consolation and advice. Deep in the lives of
those who permanently triumph over sorrow there is an abiding peace and
joy. Such peace cannot come even from ample experience in the material
world. Despair comes from that experience sometimes, unless the heart
is open to the vital spirit that lies beyond all material things, that
creates and renews life and that makes it indescribably beautiful and
significant. Experience of material things is only the beginning. In it
and through it we may have experience of the wider life that surrounds
the material.
Our hearts must be opened to the courage that comes unbidden when we
feel ourselves to be working, growing parts of the universe of God. Then
we shall have no more sorrow and no more joy in the pitiful sense of the
earth, but rather an exaltation which shall make us masters of these and
of ourselves. We shall have a sympathy and charity that shall need no
promptings, but that flow from us spontaneously into the world of
suffering and need.
Beethoven was of a sour temper, according to all accounts, but he wrote
his symphonies in the midst of tribulations under which few men would
have worked at all. When we have felt something of the spirit that makes
work inevitable, it will be as though we had heard the eternal harmonies.
We shall write our symphonies, build our bridges, or do our lesser tasks
with dauntless purpose, even though the possessions that men count dear
are taken from us. Suppose we can do very little because of some
infirmity: if that little has in it the larger inspiration, it will be
enough to make life full and fine. The joy of a wider life is not
obtainable in its completeness; it is only through a lifetime of service
and experience that we can approach it. That is the proof of its divine
origin--its unattainableness. "God keep you from the she wolf and from
your heart's deepest desire," is an old saying of the Rumanians. If we
fully obtain our desires, we prove their unworthiness. Does any one
suppose that Beethoven attained his whole heart's desire in his music?
He might have done so had he been a lesser man. He was not a cheerful
companion. That is unfortunate, and shows that he failed in complete
inspiration and in the ordinary kind of self-control. He was at least
sincere, and that helped not a little to make him what he was. I would
almost rather a man would be morose and sincere than cheerful from a
sense of duty.
Our knowledge of the greater things of life must always be substantiated
and worked out into realities of service, or else we shall be weak and
ineffective. The charity that balks at giving, reacts upon a man and
deadens him. I am always insisting that we must not live and serve
through a sense of duty, but that we must find the inspiration first. It
is better to give ourselves to service not for the sake of finding God,
but because we have found Him and because our souls have grown in the
finding until we cannot help giving. If we have grown to such a stature
we shall be able to meet sorrow and loss bravely and simply. We shall
feel for ourselves and for others in their troubles as Forbes Robertson
did when he wrote to his friend who had met with a great loss: "I pray
that you may never, never, never get over this sorrow, but through it,
into it, into the very heart of God." All this is very unworldly, no
doubt, and yet I will venture the assertion that such a standard and
such a method will come nearer to the mark of successful and
well-controlled living than the most carefully planned campaign of duty.
If we plan to make life fine, if we say, in effect, "I will be good and
cheerful, no matter what happens," we are beginning at the wrong end. We
may be able to work back from our mottoes to real living, but the
chances are we shall stop somewhere by the way, too confused and
uncertain to go on. Self-control, at its best, is not a conscious thing.
It is not well that we should try to be good, but that we should so
dignify our lives with the spirit of good that evil becomes well-nigh
impossible to us.
VIII
THE LIGHTER TOUCH
Heart not so heavy as mine,
Wending late home,
As it passed my window
Whistled itself a tune.
EMILY DICKINSON.
I have never seen good come from frightening worriers. It is no doubt
wise to speak the truth, but it seems to me a mistake to say in public
print or in private advice that worry leads to tragedies of the worst
sort. No matter how hopeful we may be in our later teaching about the
possibilities of overcoming worry, the really serious worrier will
pounce upon the original tragic statement and apply it with terrible
insistence to his own case.
I would not minimize the seriousness of worry, but I am convinced that
we can rarely overcome it by direct voluntary effort. It does not go
until we forget it, and we do not forget it if we are always trying
consciously to overcome it. We worriers must go about our
business--other business than that of worry.
Life is serious--alas, too serious--and full enough of pathos. We cannot
joke about its troubles; they are real. But, at least, we need not
magnify them. Why should we act as though everything depended upon our
efforts, even the changing seasons and the blowing winds? No doubt we
are responsible for our own acts and thoughts and for the welfare of
those who depend upon us. The trouble is we take unnecessary
responsibilities so seriously that we overreach ourselves and defeat our
own good ends.
I would make my little world more blessedly careless--with an _abandon_
that loves life too much to spoil it with worry. I would cherish so
great a desire for my child's good that I could not scold and bear down
upon him for every little fault, making him a worrier too, but,
instead, I would guide him along the right path with pleasant words and
brave encouragement. The condemnation of faults is rarely constructive.
We had better say to the worriers, "Here is life; no matter what
unfortunate things you may have said or done, you must put all evil
behind you and live--simply, bravely, well." The greater the evil,
the greater the need of forgetting. Not flippantly, but reverently,
leave your misdeeds in a limbo where they may not rise to haunt you.
This great thing you may do, not with the idea of evading or escaping
consequences, but so that past evil may be turned into present and
future good. The criminal himself is coming to be treated this way. He
is no longer eternally reminded of his crime. He is taken out into the
sunshine and air and is given a shovel to dig with. A wonderful thing is
that shovel. With it he may bury the past and raise up a happier,
better future. We must care so much to expiate our sins that we are
willing to neglect them and live righteously. That is true repentance,
constructive repentance.
We cannot suddenly change our mental outlook and become happy when grief
has borne us down. "For the broken heart silence and shade,"--that is
fair and right. I would say to those who are unhappy, "Do not try to be
happy, you cannot force it; but let peace come to you out of the great
world of beauty that calmly surrounds our human suffering, and that
speaks to us quietly of God." Genuine laughter is not forced, but we may
let it come back into our lives if we know that it is right for it to
come.
We have all about us instances of the effectiveness of the lighter touch
as applied to serious matters. The life of the busy surgeon is a good
example. He may be, and usually is, brimming with sympathy, but if he
were to feel too deeply for all his patients, he would soon fail and
die. He goes about his work. He puts through a half-dozen operations in
a way that would send cold shivers down the back of the uninitiated. And
yet he is accurate and sure as a machine. If he were to take each case
upon his mind in a heavy, consequential way, if he were to give deep
concern to each ligature he ties, and if he were to be constantly afraid
of causing pain, he would be a poor surgeon. His work, instead of being
clean and sharp, would suffer from over-conscientiousness. He might
never finish an operation for fear his patient would bleed to death.
Such a man may be the reverse of flippant, and yet he may actually enjoy
his somber work. Cruel, bloodthirsty? Not at all. These men--the great
surgeons--are as tender as children. But they love their work, they
really care very deeply for their patients. The successful ones have the
lighter touch and they have no time for worry.
Sometimes we wish to arouse the public conscience. Do the long columns
of figures, the impressive statistics, wake men to activity? It is
rather the keen, bright thrust of the satirist that saves the day. Once
in a New England town meeting there was a movement for a much-needed new
schoolhouse. By the installation of skylights in the attic the old
building had been made to accommodate the overflow of pupils. The
serious speakers in favor of the new building had left the audience
cold, when a young man arose and said he had been up into the attic and
had seen the wonderful skylights that were supposed to meet the needs of
the children. "I have seen them," he said; "we used to call them
scuttles when I was a boy." A hundred thousand dollars was voted for the
new schoolhouse.
There is a natural gayety in most of us which helps more than we realize
to keep us sound. The pity is that when responsibilities come and
hardships come, we repress our lighter selves sternly, as though such
repression were a duty. Better let us guard the springs of happiness
very, very jealously. The whistling boy in the dark street does more
than cheer himself on the way. He actually protects himself from evil,
and brings courage not only to himself, but to those who hear him. I do
not hold for false cheerfulness that is sometimes affected, but a brave
show of courage in a forlorn hope will sometimes win the day. It is
infinitely more likely to win than a too serious realization of the
danger of defeat. The show of courage is often not a pretense at all,
but victory itself.
The need of the world is very great and its human destiny is in our
hands. Half of those who could help to right the wrongs are asleep or
too selfishly immersed in their own affairs. We need more helpers like
my friend of the skylights. Most of us are far too serious. The
slumberers will slumber on, and the worriers will worry, the serious
people will go ponderously about until some one shows them how
ridiculous they are and how pitiful.
IX
REGRETS AND FOREBODINGS
Regret avails little--still less remorse--the one keeps alive
the old offense, the other creates new offenses.
GOETHE.
The unrepentant sinner walks abroad. Unfortunately for us moralists he
seems to be having a very good time. We must not condone him, though he
may be a very lovable person; neither must we altogether condemn him,
for he may be repentant in the very best way of all ways, the way that
forgets much and leaves behind more, because life is so fine that it
must not be spoiled, and because progress is in every way better than
retrospection. The fact is, that repentance is too often the fear of
punishment, and such fear is, to say the least, unmanly. I would rather
be a lovable sinner than one of the people who repent because they
cannot bear to think of the consequences. Knowledge and fear of
consequences undoubtedly keep a great many young people from the
so-called sins of ignorance. But there must be something behind
knowledge and fear of consequences to stop the youth of spirit from
doing what he is inclined to do. Over and over again we must go back to
the appreciation of life's dignity and beauty--to the consciousness of
the spirit of God behind and in the world if we are to find a balance
and a character that will "deliver us from evil."
When we have found this consciousness--when we live it and breathe it,
we shall be far less apt to sin, and when we have sinned, as we all must
in the course of our blundering lives, we shall not waste our time in
regret or in the fear of consequences. If the God we dream of is as
great as the sea, or as beautiful as a tree, we need not fear Him. He
will be tender, and just at the same time. He will be as forgiving as
He is strong. The best we can do, then, is to leave our sins in the hand
of God and go our way, sadder and wiser, maybe, but not regretting too
much, not fearing any more.
There is a new idea in medicine--the development of which has been one
of the most striking achievements of modern times--the idea of
psychanalysis as taught and advocated by Freud in Germany. The plan
is to study the subconscious mind of the nervous patient by means of
hypnotism, to assist the patient to recall all the mental experiences of
his past,--even his very early childhood,--and in this way to make clear
the origin of the misconceptions and the unfortunate impressions which
have presumably exerted their influence through the years. The new
system includes, also, the interpretation of dreams, their effect upon
the conscious life and their influence upon the mentality. Very
wonderful results are reported from the pursuit of this method. Many a
badly warped and twisted life has been straightened out and renewed when
the searchlight has revealed the hidden influences that have been at
work and which have made trouble. The repression of conscious or
unconscious feelings can no doubt change the whole mental life. We
should have the greatest respect for the men who are doing this work. It
requires, I am told, an almost unbelievable amount of patience and time
to accomplish the analysis. No doubt the adult judgment of childish
follies is a direct means of disposing of their harmful influence in
life, the surest way of losing the conscious or unconscious regrets that
sadden many lives. There are probably many cases of disturbed and
troubled mind that can be cured in this way only. The method does not
appeal to me because I am so strongly inclined to take people as they
are, to urge a forgetfulness that does not really forget, but which goes
on bravely to the development of life. This development cannot proceed
without the understanding that life may be made so beautiful that sins
and failures are lost in progress. Some of us may need the subtle
analysis of our lives to make clear the points where we went astray in
our thoughts and ideas, but many of us, fortunately, are able to take
ourselves for better or for worse, sins and all. Most of us ought to do
that, for the most part, if we are to progress and live. Sometimes the
revelations of evils we know not of result in complications rather than
simplification, as in the case of a boy who wrote to me and said that
since he had learned of his early sins he had made sure that he could
never be well. Instead of going into further analysis with him, I
assured him that, while it was undoubtedly his duty to regret all the
evil of his life, it was a still greater duty to go on and live the rest
of it well, and that he could do so if he would open his eyes to the
possibilities of unselfish service.
I am very much inclined to preach against self-analysis and the almost
inevitable regret and despair that accompany it.
One of my patients decided some time ago that her life was wasted, that
she had accomplished nothing. It was true that she had not the endurance
to meet the usual demands of social or even family life, and that for
long periods she had to give up altogether. But it happened that she had
the gift of musical understanding, that she had studied hard in younger
days. With a little urging the gift was made to grow again and to serve
not only the patient's own needs, but to bring very great pleasure to
every one who listened to her playing. That rare, true ability was worth
everything, and she came to realize it in time. The gift of musical
expression is a very great thing, and I succeeded in making this woman
understand that she should be happy in that ability even if nothing
else should be possible.
Often enough nothing that can compare with music exists, and life seems
wholly barren. Rather cold comfort it seems at first to assure a person
who is helpless that character is the greatest thing in the world, but
that is the final truth. The most limited and helpless life may glow
with it and be richer than imagination can believe. It is never time to
regret--and never time to despair. The less analysis the better. When it
comes to character, live, grow, and get a deeper and deeper
understanding of life--of life that is near to God and so capable of
wrong only as we turn away from Him. "Do not say things; what you are
stands over you and thunders so, I cannot hear what you say to the
contrary." We shall do well not to forget that, whatever failures or
mistakes we have made, there is infinite possibility ahead of us, that
character is the greatest thing in the world, and that most good
character has been built upon mistakes and failures. I believe there is
no sin which may not make up the fabric of its own forgiveness in the
living of a free, self-sacrificing life. I know of no bodily ill nor
handicap which we may not eventually rise above and beyond by means of
brave spiritual progress. The body may fail us, but the spirit reaches
on and into the great world of God.
X
THE VIRTUES
The virtues hide their vanquished fires
Within that whiter flame--
Till conscience grows irrelevant
And duty but a name.
FREDERICK LAWRENCE KNOWLES.