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 "Cæsar 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.
I have spoken several times of the study of economy, and of the science
of economy; and I used these words advisedly. However natural and
comparatively easy it may be to some persons to form an accurate
judgment of the general average of their ordinary expenses, and of all
the contingencies that are perpetually arising, I do not believe that
you possess this power by nature: you only need, however, to force your
intellectual faculties into this direction to find that here, as
elsewhere, they may be made available for every imaginable purpose. You
have sometimes probably envied those among your acquaintance, much less
highly gifted perhaps than yourself, who have so little difficulty in
practising economy, that without any effort at all, they have always
money in hand for any unexpected exigency, as well as to fulfil all
regular demands upon their purse. It is an observation made by every
one, that among the same number of girls, some will be found to dress
better, give away more, and be better provided for sudden emergencies,
than their companions. Nor are these ordinarily the more clever girls of
one's acquaintance: I have known some who were decidedly below par as to
intellect who yet possessed in a high degree the practical knowledge of
economy. Instead of vainly lamenting your natural inferiority on such an
important point, you should seek diligently to remove it.
An acquired knowledge of the art of economy is far better than any
natural skill therein; for the acquisition will involve the exercise of
many intellectual faculties, such as generalization, foresight,
calculation, at the same time that the moral faculties are strengthened
by the constant exercise of self-control. For, granted that the
naturally economical are neither shabbily penurious nor deficient in the
duty of almsgiving, it is still evident that it cannot be the same
effort to them to deny themselves a tempting act of liberality, or the
gratification of elegant and commendable tastes, as it must be to those
who are destitute of equally instinctive feelings as to the inadequacy
of their funds to meet demands of this nature. It is invariably true
that economy must be difficult, and therefore admirable in proportion to
the warm-heartedness and the refined tastes of those who practise it.
The highly-gifted and the generous meet with a thousand temptations to
expenditure beyond their means, of the number and strength of which the
less amiable and refined can form no adequate conception. If, however,
those above spoken of are exposed to stronger temptations than others,
they also carry within themselves the means, if properly employed, of
more powerful and skillful defence. There is, as I said before, no right
purpose, however contrary to the natural constitution of the mind, for
which intellectual powers may not be made available; and if strong
feelings render self-denial more difficult, especially in points of
charity or generosity, they, on the other hand, serve to impress more
deeply and vividly on the mind the painful self-reproach consequent to
any act of imprudence and extravagance.
The first effort made by your intellectual powers towards acquiring a
practical knowledge of the science of economy should be the important
one of generalizing all your expenses, and then performing the same
process upon the funds that there is a fair probability of your having
at your disposal. The former is difficult, as the expenditure of even a
single person, independent of any establishment, involves so many
unforeseen contingencies, that, unless by combining the past and the
future you generalize a probable average, and then bring this average
_within_ your income, you can never experience any of the peace of mind
and readiness to meet the calls of charity which economy alone bestows.