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]