support it. Perhaps even an hour of close thinking would be too much for
most women; the object, however, ought not to be so much the quantity as
the quality of the exercise. If your peculiarly delicate and sensitive
organization cannot support more than a quarter of an hour's continuous
and concentrated thought, you must content yourself with that.
Experience will soon prove to you that even the few minutes thus
employed will give you a great superiority over the six-hours-a-day
readers of your acquaintance, and will serve as a solid and sufficient
foundation for all the lighter superstructure which you will afterwards
lay upon it. This latter, in its due place, I should consider as of
nearly as much importance as the foundation itself; for, keeping
steadily in view that usefulness is to be the primary object of all your
studies, you must devote much more time and attention to the
embellishing, because refining branches of literature, than would be
necessary for those whose office is not so peculiarly that of soothing
and pleasing as woman's is. Even these lighter studies, however, must be
subjected to the same reflective process as the severer ones, or they
will never become an incorporate part of the mind itself: they will, on
the contrary, if this process is neglected, stand out, as the knowledge
of all uneducated people does, in abrupt and unharmonizing prominence.
It is not to be so much your object to acquire the power of quoting
poetry or prose, or to be acquainted with the names of the authors of
celebrated fictions and their details, as to be imbued with the spirit
of heroism, generosity, self-sacrifice,--in short, the practical love of
the beautiful which every universally-admired fiction, whether it have a
professedly moral tendency or not, is calculated to excite. The refined
taste, the accurate perceptions, the knowledge of the human heart, and
the insight into character, which intellectual culture can highly
improve, even if it cannot create, are to be the principal results as
well as the greatest pleasures to which you are to look forward. In
study, as in every other important pursuit, the immediate
results--those that are most tangible and encouraging to the faint and
easily disheartened--are exactly those which are least deserving of
anxiety. A couple of hours' reading of poetry in the morning might
qualify you to act the part of oracle that very evening to a whole
circle of inquirers; it might enable you to tell the names, and dates,
and authors of a score of remarkable poems: and this, besides, is a
species of knowledge which every one can appreciate. It is not, however,
comparable in kind to the refinement of mind, the elevation of thought,
the deepened sense of the beautiful, which a really intellectual study
of the same works would impart or increase. I do not wish to depreciate
the good offices of the memory; it is very valuable as a handmaid to the
higher powers of the intellect. I have, however, generally observed that
where much attention has been devoted to the recollection of names,
facts, dates, &c., the higher species of intellectual cultivation have
been neglected: attention to them, on the other hand, would never
involve any neglect of the advantages of memory; for a cultivated
intellect can suggest to itself a thousand associative links by which it
can be assisted and rendered much more extensively useful than a mere
verbal memory could ever be. The more of these links (called by
Coleridge hooks-and-eyes) you can invent for yourself, the more will
your memory become an intellectual faculty. By such means, also, you can
retain possession of all the information with which your reading may
furnish you, without paying such exclusive attention to those tangible
and immediate results of study as would deprive you of the more solid
and permanent ones. These latter consist, as I said before, in the
improvement of the mind itself, and not in its furniture. A modern
author has remarked, that the improvement of the mind is like the
increase of money from compound interest in a bank, as every fresh
increase, however trifling, serves as a new link with which to connect
still further acquisitions. This remark is strikingly illustrative of
the value of an intellectual kind of memory. Every new idea will serve
as a "hook-and-eye," with which you can fasten together the past and the
future; every new fact intellectually remembered will serve as an
illustration of some formerly-established principle, and, instead of
burdening you with the separate difficulty of remembering itself, will
assist you in remembering other things.
It is a universal law, that action is in inverse proportion to power;
and therefore the deeply-thinking mind will find a much greater
difficulty in drawing out its capabilities on short notice, and
arranging them in the most effective position, than a mind of mere
cleverness, of merely acquired, and not assimilated knowledge. This
difficulty, however, need not be permanent, though at first it is
inevitable. A woman's mind, too, is less liable to it; as, however
thoughtful her nature may be, this thoughtfulness is seldom strengthened
by habit. She is seldom called upon to concentrate the powers of her
mind on any intellectual pursuits that require intense and
long-continuous thought. The few moments of intense thought which I
recommend to you will never add to your thoughtfulness of nature any
habits that will require serious difficulty to overcome. It is also,
unless a man be in public life, of more importance to a woman than to
him to possess action, viz. great readiness in the use and disposal of
whatever intellectual powers she may possess. Besides this, you must
remember that a want of quickness and facility in recollection, of ease
and distinctness in expression, is quite as likely to arise from
desultory and wandering habits of thought as from the slowness referable
to deep reflection. Most people find difficulty in forcing their
thoughts to concentrate themselves on any given subject, or in
afterwards compelling them to take a comprehensive glance of every
feature of that subject. Both these processes require much the same
habits of mind: the latter, perhaps, though apparently the more
discursive in its nature, demands a still greater degree of
concentration than the former.
When the mind is set in motion, it requires a stronger exertion to
confine its movements within prescribed limits than when it is steadily
fixed on one given point. For instance, it would be easier to meditate
on the subject of patriotism, bringing before the mind every quality of
the heart and head that this virtue would have a tendency to develop,
than to take in, at one comprehensive glance,[76] the different
qualities of those several individuals who have been most remarked for
the virtue. Unless the thoughts were under strong and habitual control,
they would infallibly wander to other peculiarities of these same
individuals, unconnected with the given subject, to curious facts in
their lives, to contemporary characters, &c.; thus loitering by the
way-side in amusing, but here unprofitable reflection: for every
exercise of thought like that which I have described is only valuable in
proportion to the degree of accuracy with which we can contemplate with
one instantaneous glance, laid out upon a map as it were, those features
_only_ belonging to the given subject, and keeping out of view all
foreign ones. There is perhaps no faculty of the mind more susceptible
of evident, as it were tangible, improvement than this: besides, the
exercise of mind which it procures us is one of the highest intellectual
pleasures; you should therefore immediately and perseveringly devote
your efforts and attention to seek out the best mode of cultivating it.
Even the reading of books which require deep and continuous thought is
only a preparation for this higher exercise of the faculties--a useful,
indeed a necessary preparation, because it promotes the habit of fixing
the attention and concentrating the powers of the mind on any given
point. In assimilating the thoughts of others, however, with your own
mind and memory, the mind itself remains nearly passive; it is as the
wax that receives the impression, and must for this purpose be in a
suitable state of impressibility. In exact proportion to the
suitableness of this state are the clearness and the beauty of the
impression; but even when most true and most deep, its value is
extrinsic and foreign: it is only when the mind begins to act for itself
and weaves out of its own materials a new and native manufacture, that
the real intellectual existence can be said to commence. While,
therefore, I repeat my advice to you, to devote some portion of every
day to such reading as will require the strongest exertion of your
powers of thought, I wish, at the same time, to remind you that even
this, the highest species of _reading_, is only to be considered as a
means to an end: though productive of higher and nobler enjoyments than
the unintellectual can conceive, it is nothing more than the
stepping-stone to the genuine pleasures of pure intellect, to the
ennobling sensation of directing, controlling, and making the most
elevated use of the powers of an immortal mind.
To woman, the power of abstracted thought, and the enjoyment derived
from it, is even more valuable than to man. His path lies in active
life; and the earnest craving for excitement, for action, which is the
characteristic of all powerful natures, is in man easily satisfied: it
is satisfied in the sphere of his appointed duty; "he must go forth, and
resolutely dare." Not so the woman, whose scene of action is her quiet
home: her virtues must be passive ones; and with every qualification for
successful activity, she is often compelled to chain down her vivid
imagination to the most monotonous routine of domestic life. When she is
entirely debarred from external activity, a restlessness of nature, that
can find no other mode of indulgence, will often invent for itself
imaginary trials and imaginary difficulties: hence the petty quarrels,
the mean jealousies, which disturb the peace of many homes that might
have been tranquil and happy if the same activity of thought and feeling
had been early directed into right channels. A woman who finds real
enjoyment in the improvement of her mind will neither have time nor
inclination for tormenting her servants and her family; an avocation in
which many really affectionate and professedly religious women exhaust
those superfluous energies which, under wise direction, might have
dispensed peace and happiness instead of disturbance and annoyance. A
woman who has acquired proper control over her thoughts, and can find
enjoyment in their intellectual exercise, will have little temptation to
allow them to dwell on mean and petty grievances. That admirable Swedish
proverb, "It is better to rule your house with your head than with your
heels," will be exemplified in all her practice. Her well-regulated and
comprehensive mind (and comprehensiveness of mind is as necessary to the
skilful management of a household as to the government of an empire)
will be able to contrive such systems of domestic arrangement as will
allot exactly the suitable works at the suitable times to each member of
the establishment: no one will be over-worked, no one idle; there will
not only be a place for every thing, and every thing in its place, but
there will also be a time for every thing, and every thing will have its
allotted time. Such a system once arranged by a master-mind, and still
superintended by a steady and intelligent, but not _incessant_
inspection, raises the character of the governed as well as that of her
who governs: they are never brought into collision with each other; and
the inferior, whose manual expertness may far exceed that to which the
superior has even the capability of attaining, will nevertheless look up
with admiring respect to those powers of arrangement, and that steady
and uncapriciously-exerted authority, which so facilitate and lighten
the task of obedience and dependence. This mode of managing a household,
even if they found it possible, would of course be disliked by those
who, having no higher resources, would find the day hang heavy on their
hands unless they watched all the details of household work, and made
every action of every servant result from their own immediate
interference, instead of from an enlarged and uniformly operating
system.
This subject has brought me back to the point from which I began,--the
_practical_ utility of a cultivated intellect, and the additional power
and usefulness it confers,--raising its possessor above all the mean and
petty cares of daily life, and enabling her to impart ennobling
influences to its most trifling details.
The power of thought, which I have so earnestly recommended you to
cultivate, is even still more practical, and still more useful, when
considered relatively to the most important business of life--that of
religion. Prayer and meditation, and that communion with the unseen
world which imparts a foretaste of its happiness and glory, are enjoyed
and profited by in proportion to the power of controlling the thoughts
and of exercising the mind. Having a firm trust, that to you every other
object is considered subordinate to that of advancement in the spiritual
life, it must be a very important consideration whether, and how far,
the self-education you may bestow on yourself will help you towards its
attainment. In this point of view there can be no doubt that the mental
cultivation recommended in this letter has a much more advantageous
influence upon your religious life than any other manner of spending
your time. Besides the many collateral tendencies of such pursuits to
favour that growth in grace which I trust will ever remain the principal
object of your desires, experience will soon show you that every
improvement in the reflective powers, every additional degree of control
over the movements of the mind, may find an immediate exercise in the
duties of religion.
The wandering thoughts which are habitually excluded from your hours of
study will not be likely to intrude frequently or successfully during
your hours of devotion; the habit of concentrating all the powers of
your mind on one particular subject, and then developing all its
features and details, will require no additional effort for the pious
heart to direct it into the lofty employments of meditation on eternal
things and communion with our God and Saviour: at the same time, the
employments of prayer and meditation will in their turn react upon your
merely secular studies, and facilitate your progress in them by giving
you habits of singleness of mind and steadiness of mental purpose.
FOOTNOTES:
[71] Carlyle.
[72] Matt. xxv. 23.
[73] Dan. xii. 3.
[74] "The vessel whose rupture occasioned the paralysis was so minute
and so slightly affected by the circulation, that it could have been
ruptured only by the over-action of the mind"--_Bishop Jebb's Life_.
[75] "This is nature's law; she will never see her children wronged. If
the mind which rules the body, ever forgets itself so far as to trample
upon its slave, the slave is never generous enough to forgive the injury
but will rise and smile its oppressor. Thus has many a monarch been
dethroned."--_Longfellow_.
[76] It is the theory of Locke, that the angels have all their knowledge
spread out before them, as in a map,--all to be seen together at one
glance.
LETTER IX.
THE CULTIVATION OF THE MIND
(_Continued_)
In continuation of my last letter, I shall proceed at once to the minor
details of study, and suggest for your adoption such practices as others
by experience have found conducive to improvement. Not that one person
can lay down any rules for another that might in every particular be
safely followed: we must, each for ourselves, experimentalize long and
variously upon our own mind, before we can understand the mode of
treatment best suited to it; and we may, perhaps, in the progress of
such experiments, derive as much benefit from our mistakes themselves as
if the object of our experiments had been at once attained. It is not,
however, from wilful mistakes, or from deliberate ignorance, that we
ever derive profit. Instead, therefore, of striking out entirely new
plans for yourself, in which time and patience and even hope may be
exhausted, I should advise you to listen for direction to the
suggestions of those who by more than mere profession have frequented
the road upon which you are anxious to make a rapid progress. In books
you may find much that is useful; from the conversation of those who
have been self-educated you may receive still greater assistance,--as
the advice thus personally addressed must of course be more
discriminating and special. For this latter reason, in all that I am now
about to write, I keep in view the peculiar character and formation of
your mind. I do not address the world in general, who would profit
little by the course of education here recommended: I only write to my
Unknown Friend.
In the first place, I should advise, as of primary importance, the
laying down of a regular system of employment. Impose upon yourself the
duty of getting through so much work every day; even, if possible, lay
down a plan as to the particular period of the day in which each
occupation is to be attended to; many otherwise wasted moments would be
saved by having arranged beforehand that which is successively to engage
the attention. The great advantage of such regularity is experienced in
the acknowledged truth of Lord Chesterfield's maxim: "He who has most
business has most leisure." When the multiplicity of affairs to be got
through absolutely necessitates the arrangement of an appointed time for
each, the same habits of regularity and of undilatoriness (if I may be
allowed the expression) are insensibly carried into the lighter pursuits
of life. There is another important reason for the self-imposition of
those systematic habits which to men of business are a necessity; it is,
however, one which you cannot at all appreciate until you have
experienced its importance: I refer to the advantage of being, by a
self-imposed rule, provided with an immediate object, in which the
intellectual pursuits of a woman must otherwise be deficient. I would
not depreciate the mightiness of "the future;"[77] but it is evident that
the human mind is so constituted as to feel that motives increase in
strength as they approach in nearness; otherwise, why should it require
such strong faith, and that faith a supernatural gift, to enable us to
sacrifice the present gratification of a moment to the happiness of an
eternity. While, therefore, you seek by earnest prayer and reverential
desire to bring the future into perpetually operating force upon your
principles and practice, do not, at the same time, be deterred by any
superstitious fears from profiting by yourself and urging on others
every immediate and temporal motive, not inconsistent with the great
one, "to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever."[78]
While your principal personal object and personal gratification in your
studies is to be derived from the gradual improvement of your mind and
tastes, this gradual improvement will be often so imperceptible that you
will need support and cheering during many weeks and months of
apparently profitless mental application. Such support you may provide
for yourself in the daily satisfaction resulting from having fulfilled a
certain task, from having obeyed a law, though only a self-imposed one.
Men, in their studies, have almost always that near and immediate object
which I recommend to you to create for yourself. For them, as well as
for you, the distant future of attained mental eminence and excellence
is indeed the principal object. They, however, have it in their power to
cheat the toil and cheer the way by many intermediate steps, which
serve both as landmarks in their course and objects of interest within
their immediate reach. They can almost always have some special object
in view, as the result and reward of the studies of each month, or
quarter, or year. They read for prizes, scholarships, fellowships, &c.;
and these rewards, tangibly and actually within their reach, excite
their energies and quicken their exertions.
For women there is nothing of the kind; it is therefore a useful
exercise of her ingenuity to invent some substitute, however inferior to
the original. For this purpose, I have never found any thing so
effectual as a self-imposed system of study,--the stricter the better.
It is not desirable, however, that this system should be one of very
constant employment; the strictness of which I spoke only refers to its
regularity. As the great object is that you should break through your
rules as seldom as possible, it would be better to fix the number of
your hours of occupation rather below, certainly not above, your average
habits. The time that may be to spare on days in which you meet with no
interruption from visitors may also be systematically disposed of: you
may always have some book in hand which will be ready to fill up any
unoccupied moments, without, even on these occasions, wasting your time
in deliberating as to what your next employment shall be.
You understand me, therefore, to recommend that those hours of the
system which you are to impose upon yourself to employ in a certain
manner are not to exceed the number you can ordinarily secure without
interruption on _every_ day of the week, exclusive of visitors, &c. &c.
Every advantage pertaining to the system I recommend is much enhanced by
the uniformity of its observance: indeed, it is on rigid attention to
this point that its efficacy principally depends. I will now enter into
the details of the system of study which, however modified by your own
mind and habits, will, I hope, in some form or other, be adopted by you.
The first arrangement of your time ought to be the laying apart of a
certain period every day for the deepest thinking you can compel
yourself to, either on or off book.
Having said so much on this point in my last letter, I should run the
risk of repetition if I dwelt longer upon it here. I only mention it at
all to give it again the most prominent position in your studies, and to
recommend its invariably occupying a daily place in them. For every
other pursuit, two or three times a week might answer as well, perhaps
better, as it would be too great an interruption to devote to each only
so short a period of time as could be allotted to it in a daily
distribution. It may be desirable, before I take leave of the subject of
your deeper studies, to mention here some of the books which will give
you the most effectual aid in the formation of your mind.
Butler's Analogy will be perhaps the very best to begin with: you must
not, however, flatter yourself that you in any degree understand this or
other books of the same nature until you penetrate into their extreme
difficulty,--until, in short, you find out that you can _not_ thoroughly
understand them _yet_. Queen Caroline, George II.'s wife, in the hope of
proving to Bishop Horsley how fully she appreciated the value of the
work I have just mentioned, told him that she had it constantly beside
her at her breakfast-table, to read a page or two in it whenever she had
an idle moment. The Bishop's reply was scarcely intended for a
compliment. He said _he_ could never open the book without a headache;
and really a headache is in general no bad test of our having thought
over a book sufficiently to enter in some degree into its real meaning:
only remember, that when the headache begins the reading or the thinking
must stop. As you value tho long and unimpaired preservation of your
powers of mind, guard carefully against any over-exertion of them.