source of many troubles. Those who blow the coals of others' strife may
chance to have the sparks fly in their own face. We think more of
ourselves than of others, but sometimes more for others than ourselves.
People are often incited to meddling by the desire of having "something
to tell;" but, if you notice, they are but narrow-minded and ignorant
people, who talk about persons and not things. Mere gossip is always a
personal confession either of malice or imbecility, and the refined
should not only shun it, but by the most thorough culture relieve
themselves of all temptation to indulge in it. It is a low, frivolous,
and too often a dirty business. There are neighborhoods in which it
rages like a pest. Churches are split in pieces by it; neighbors are
made enemies by it for life. In many persons it degenerates into a
chronic disease, which is practically incurable. Be on your guard
against contracting so pernicious a habit.
A person who constantly meddles means to do harm, and is not sorry to
find he has succeeded. He is a treacherous supplanter and underminer of
the peace of all families and societies. This being a maxim of unfailing
truth, that nobody ever pries into another man's concerns but with a
design to do, or to be able to do, him a mischief. His tongue, like the
tails of Samson's foxes, carries firebrands, and is enough to set the
whole field of the world in a flame. To meddle with another's privileges
and prerogatives is vexatious; to meddle with his interests is
injurious; to meddle with his good name unites and aggravates both
evils.
There is, perhaps, not a more odious character in the world than a
go-between, by which we mean the creature who carries to the ear of one
neighbor every injurious observation that happens to drop from the mouth
of another. Such a person is the slanderer's herald, and is altogether
more odious than the slanderer himself. By this vile officiousness he
makes that poison effective which else would be inert; for three-fourths
of the slanderers in the world would never injure their object except by
the malice of go-betweens, who, under the mask of a double friendship,
act the part of a double traitor. The less business a man has of his
own, the more he attends to the business of his neighbors.
Do not cultivate curiosity; every man has in his own life follies
enough, in his own mind troubles enough, in the performance of his own
duties difficulties enough, without being curious about the affairs of
others. Of all the faculties of the human mind, curiosity is that which
is most fruitful or the most barren in effective results, according as
it is well or badly directed. The curiosity of an honorable man
willingly rests where the love of truth does not urge it further onward,
and the love of his neighbor bids it stop. In other words, it willingly
stops at the point where the interests of truth do not beckon it onward
and charity cries halt. But the busybody in others' affairs is not apt
to hold his curiosity in such reasonable limits. The slightest
appearance of mystery is sufficient to incite them to great exertions in
endeavor to gratify a curiosity as idle as it is useless, and entirely
out of his business.
A meddler in the affairs of others is seldom moved by the spirit of
charity. He is not curious to discover where he can lend a hand of
assistance. If such were the case, it were a trait to be admired rather
than despised; but, allied as it is to envy and slander, to idle
curiosity and inquisitiveness, it can but be detested by all honest
seekers for others' good, and shunned by the truly enlightened and
refined. And if one would be honored and respected, he will strive to be
as free from the spirit of meddling as possible. He will relegate that
to the low and frivolous, and respect himself too highly to be classed
among them.
[Illustration: ANGER.]
[Illustration]
Anger is the most impotent passion that accompanies the mind of man. It
affects nothing it sets about, and hurts the man who is possessed by it
more than the other against whom it is directed.
The disadvantages arising from anger, which are its unfailing
concomicants under all circumstances, should prove a panacea for the
complaint. In moments of cool reflection the man who indulges it views
with a deep disgust the desolation wrought by passion. Friendship,
domestic happiness, self-respect, the esteem of others, are swept away
as by a whirlwind, and one brief fit of anger sometimes suffices to lay
in wreck the home happiness which years have been cementing together.
What crimes have not been committed in the paroxysms of anger! Has not
the friend murdered his friend? the son massacred his parent? the
creature blasphemed his Creator. When, indeed, the nature of this
passion is considered what crimes may it not commit? Is it not the storm
of the human mind which wrecks every better affection—wrecks reason and
conscience, and, as a ship driven without helm or compass before the
rushing gale, is not the mind borne away without guide or government by
the tempest of unbounded rage?
To be angry about trifles is low and childish; to rage and be furious is
brutish; and to maintain perpetual wrath is akin to the practice and
temper of devils. The round of a passionate man's life is in contracting
future debts in his passionate moments which he may have to pay in the
future, and when it is most inconvenient to make payment. He spends his
time in outrage and acknowledgment, in injury and reparation; for anger
begins in folly, but ends in repentance. Anger may be looked for in the
character of weak-minded people, children not yet learned to govern
themselves, and those who, for any reason, are not expected to have full
command over their faculties; but no sensible man or woman in the full
possession of their powers will suffer the degradation of allowing
themselves to be overcome by anger without afterwards experiencing the
utmost mortification.
A passionate temper renders a man unfit for advice, deprives him of his
reason, robs him of all that is really great or noble in his nature; it
makes him unfit for conversation, destroys friendship, changes justice
into cruelty, and turns all order into confusion. Man was born to
reason, to reflection, and to do all things quietly and in order. Anger
takes from him this prerogative, transforms his manship into childish
petulance, his reasoning powers into brute instinct. Consider, then, how
much more you often suffer from your anger than from those things for
which you are angry. Consider, further, whether that for which you give
way to angry outbreaks is any fit compensation whatever for the
degradation and loss you suffer by giving way to passion.
No man is obliged to live so free from passion as not to show some
sentiment; on fit occasions it were rather stoical stupidity than virtue
to do otherwise. There are times and occasions when the expression of
indignation is not only justifiable but necessary. We are bound to be
indignant at falsehood, selfishness, and cruelty. A man of true feeling
fires up naturally at baseness or meanness of any sort, even in cases
where he may be under no obligation to speak out. But then his anger is
as reasonable in its outward expression as in its origin.
We must, however, be careful how we indulge in virtuous indignation. It
is the handsome brother of anger and hatred. Anger may glance into the
breast of a wise man, but rests only in the bosom of fools. A wise man
hath no more anger than is necessary to show that he can apprehend the
first wrong, nor any more revenge than justly to prevent a second.
If anger proceeds from a great cause it turns to fury; if from a small
cause it is peevishness; and so it is always either terrible or
ridiculous. Sinful anger, when it becomes strong, is called wrath; when
it makes outrage it is fury; when it becomes fixed it is termed hatred;
and when it intends to injure any one it is called malice. All these
wicked passions spring from anger. The intoxication of anger, like that
of the grape, shows us to others, but conceals us from ourselves, and we
injure our own cause in the eyes of the world when we too passionately
and eagerly defend it.
There is many a man whose tongue might govern multitudes if he could
only govern his tongue. He is the man of power who controls the storms
and tempests of his mind. How sweet the serenity of habitual
self-control! How many stinging self-reproaches it spares us! When does
a man feel more at ease with himself than when he has passed through a
sudden and strong provocation without speaking a word, or in undisturbed
good humor? When, on the contrary, does he feel a deeper humiliation
than when he is conscious that anger has made him betray himself? How
many there are who check passion with passion, and are very angry in
reproving anger! Thus to lay one devil they raise another, and leave
more work to be done than they found undone. Such a reproof of anger is
a vice to be reproved. Reproof either hardens or softens its object. The
sword of reproof should be drawn against the offense and not against the
offender.
It is not falling in the water, but remaining in it, that drowns a man.
So it is not the possession of a strong and hasty temper, but the
submission to it, that produces the evils incident to anger. In no other
way does a man show genuine nobility more than in resolutely holding his
temper subject to reason. In no other way can he so effectually attain
success, for a strong temper indicates a good amount of energy; passion
serves to dissipate this, so that its good effects are not perceived;
whereas, under the guiding reins of self-control, this energy is
gathered into a "central glow," which renders success in any
predetermined line not only a possibility but a very probable sequence.
[Illustration: AMBITION.]
[Illustration]
There is a large element of deception in all ambitious schemes, for
ofttimes, when at the summit of ambition, one is at the depths of
despair, and the showy results of a successful pursuit of ambition are
sometimes but gilded misery, the casing of despair. The history of
ambition is written in characters of blood. It may be designated as one
of the vices of small minds, illiberal and unacquainted with mankind. It
is a solitary vice. The road ambition travels is too narrow for
friendship, too crooked for love, too rugged for honesty, too dark for
science, and too hilly for happiness.
Those who pursue ambition as a means of happiness awake to a far
different reality. The wear and tear of hearts is never recompensed. It
steals away the freshness of life; it deadens its vivid and social
enjoyments; it shuts our souls to our own youth, and we are old ere we
remember that we have made a fever and a labor of our raciest years. The
happiness promised by ambition dissolves in sorrow just as we are about
to grasp it. It makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice
makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means of
happiness, but she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
A thoroughly ambitious man will never make a true friend, for he who
makes ambition his god tramples upon every thing else. What cares he if
in his onward march he treads upon the hearts of those who love him
best. In his eyes your only value lies in the use you may be to him.
Personally one is nothing to him. If you are not rich or famous or
powerful enough to advance his interests, after he has got above you he
cares no more for you. It is the nature of ambition to make men liars
and cheats, to hide the truth in their breast, and show, like jugglers,
another thing in their mouth; to cut all friendships and enmities to the
measure of their interests, and to make a good countenance without the
help of a good will.
If, as one says, "ambition is but a shadow's shadow," it were well to
remember that a shadow, wherever it passes, leaves a track behind. It
would conduce to humility also to remember that of the greatest
personages in the world when once they are dead there remains no
monument of their selfish ambition except the empty renown of their
boasted name. It is a very indiscreet and troublesome ambition which
cares so much about fame, about what the world will say of us, to be
always looking in the faces of others for approval, to be always anxious
about the effect of what we do or say, to be always shouting to hear the
echo of our own voices. To be famous? What does this profit a year
hence, when other names sound louder than yours?
The desire to be thought well of, to desire to be great in goodness, is
in itself a noble quality of the mind, and is often termed ambition,
though it lacks the element of selfishness which renders ambition so
odious to all right-minded people. It seems an abuse of language to
confound such a trait of the mind with ambition. It were better to call
it aspiration, which becomes ambition only when carried to an extreme,
or when the objects for the attainment of which ambition incites us to
put forth our utmost exertions are unworthy the attention of sentient
moral beings, who live not only for time, but for eternity. A worthy
aspiration may be a great incentive to advancement and civilization, a
great teacher to morality and wisdom; but an unworthy ambition, unworthy
because of its ends or the zeal with which they are pursued, is often
the instrument of crime and iniquity, the instigator of intemperance and
rashness.
Ambition is an excessive quality, and, as such, is apt to lead us to the
most extraordinary results. If our ambition leads us to excel or seek to
excel in that which is good, the currents it may induce us to support
will be none but legitimate ones. But if it is stimulated by pride,
envy, avariciousness, or vanity, we will confine our support principally
to the counter currents of life, and thus leave behind us misery and
destruction. An _ambition_ to appear to be thought great in noble
qualities may lead us to _appear_ good; but where we only act from
ambition, and not from aspiration, we are subject to fall at any moment,
since it were vain to expect selfishness to long continue in any right
action.
If it is our ambition to gain distinction, we will rob the weak and
flatter the strong, and become the fawning slave of those who are able
to foist us above our betters, and deck us with the titles and honors of
the great without any regard to our own merit of respectability. But if
we are ambitious to do good, without any regard for the fame we may win
or the praise we may command, our course will be honorable and just, our
acts and deeds most worthy and good. When we have done with the world
the prints of our worthy ambition will still remain as a legacy to those
who come after us to enjoy and reap the benefits, for which they will
revere our memory, and retain our names in the lists of those whose
labors have aided in enriching the world and exalting the general
interests of mankind.
To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our
nature is the very principle and incentive of virtue; but to be
ambitious of titles, of place, of ceremonial respects and civil
pageantry is as vain and little as the things are which we court. Much
of the advancement of the world can be traced to the efforts of those
who were moved by ambition to become famous. Like fire, ambition is an
excellent servant, but a poor master. As long as it is held subservient
to integrity and honor, and made to conform to the requirements of
justice, there is but little danger of a man's having too much of it.
But, beware! it is such an insatiate passion that you must be
continually on your guard lest it speedily become the ruling principle
of your being.
[Illustration: POLITENESS.]
[Illustration]
Among the qualities of mind and heart which conduce to worldly success,
there is no one the importance of which is more real, yet which is more
generally underrated at this day by the young, than courtesy—that
feeling of kindness, of love for our fellows, which expresses itself in
pleasing manners. Owing to that spirit of self-reliance and
self-assertion, they are too apt to despise those nameless and exquisite
tendernesses of thought and manner that mark the true gentleman. Yet
history is crowded with examples showing that, as in literature it is
the delicate, indefinable charm of style, not the thought, that makes a
work immortal, so it is the bearing of a man towards his fellows that
ofttimes, more than any other circumstance, promotes or obstructs his
advancement in life.
Manner has a great deal to do with the estimation in which men are held
by the world; and it has often more influence in the government of
others than qualities of much greater depth and substance. We may
complain that our fellow-men are more for form than substance, for the
superficial rather than the solid contents of a man, but the fact
remains, and it is a clew to many of the seeming anomalies and freaks of
fortune which surprise us in the matter of worldly prosperity. The
success or failure of one's plans have often turned upon the address and
manner of the man. Though there are a few people who can look beyond the
rough husk or shell of a fellow-being to the finer qualities hidden
within, yet the vast majority, not so keen-visaged nor tolerant, judge a
person by his outward bearings and conduct.
Grace, agreeable manners, and fascinating powers are one thing, while
politeness is another. The two points are often mistaken in the
occasional meeting, but the true gentleman always rises to the surface
at last. Nothing will develop a spirit of true politeness except a mind
imbued with goodness, justness, and generosity. Manners are different in
every country; but true politeness is every-where the same. Manners
which take up so much of our attention are only artificial helps which
ignorance assumes in order to imitate politeness, which is the result of
much good sense, some good-nature, and a little self-denial for the sake
of others, but with no design of obtaining the same indulgence from
them. A person possessed of those qualities, though he had never seen a
court, is truly agreeable; and if without them would continue a clown,
though he had been all his life a gentleman usher.
He is truly well-bred who knows when to value and when to despise those
national peculiarities which are regarded by some with so much
observance. A traveler of taste at once perceives that the wise are
polite all the world over, but that fools are polite only at home. Since
circumstances always alter cases, the polite man must know when to
violate the conventional forms which common practice has established,
and when to respect them. To be a slave to any set code of actions is as
bad as to despise them. Perceptiveness, adaptation, penetration, and a
happy faculty of suiting manners to circumstances, is one of the
principles upon which one must work; for the etiquette of the
drawing-room differs from that of the office or railroad-car, and what
may be downright rudeness in one case may be gentility in the other.
Benevolence and charity, with a true spirit of meekness, must be one of
the ruling motives of the understanding; for without this no man can be
polite. Politeness must know no classification; the rich and the poor
must alike share its justice and humanity. Exclusive spirits, that shun
those whose level in life is not on the same extravagant platform as
themselves, can not aspire to the high honor of wearing the name of
gentleman. The truly polite man acts from the highest and noblest ideas
of what is right.
True politeness ever hath regard for the comfort and happiness of
others. "It is," says Witherspoon, "real kindness kindly expressed."
Viewed in this light, how devoid of the virtue are some who pride
themselves on a strict observance of all its rules! Many a man who now
stands ranked as a gentleman, because his smile is ready and his bow
exquisite, is, in reality, unworthy of such an honor, since he cares
more for the least incident pertaining to his own comfort than he does
for the greatest occasion of discomfort to others.
The true gentleman is recognized by his regard for the rights and
feelings of others, even in matters the most trivial. He respects the
individuality of others, just as he wishes others to respect his own. In
society he is quiet, easy, unobtrusive, putting on no airs nor hinting
by word or manner that he deems himself better, wiser, or richer than
any one about him. He is never "stuck up," nor looks down upon others
because they have not titles, honors, or social position equal to his
own. He never boasts of his achievements or angles for compliments by
affecting to underrate what he has done. He prefers to act rather than
to talk, to be rather than to seem, and, above all things, is
distinguished by his deep insight and sympathy, his quick perception of
and attention to those little and apparently insignificant things that
may cause pleasure or pain to others. In giving his opinions he does not
dogmatize; he listens patiently and respectfully to other men, and, if
compelled to dissent from their opinions, acknowledges his fallibility,
and asserts his own views in such a manner as to command the respect of
all who hear him. Frankness and cordiality mark all his intercourse with
his fellows, and, however high his station, the humblest man feels
instantly at ease in his presence.
The truest politeness comes of sincerity. It must be the outcome of the
heart or it will make no lasting impression, for no amount of polish
will dispense with truthfulness. The natural character must be allowed
to appear freed of its angularities and asperities. To acquire that ease
and grace of manners which distinguishes and is possessed by every
well-bred person one must think of others rather than of one's self, and
study to please them even at one's own inconvenience. "Do unto others as
you would that others should do unto you"—the golden rule of life—is
also the law of politeness, and such politeness implies self-sacrifice,
many struggles and conflicts. It is an art and tact rather than an
instinct and inspiration.
Daily experience shows that civility is not only one of the essentials
of success, but it is almost a fortune in itself, and that he who has
this quality in perfection, though a blockhead, is almost sure to rise
where, without it, men of high ability fail. "Give a boy address and
accomplishment," says Emerson, "and you give him the mastery of palaces
and fortunes. Wherever he goes he has not the trouble of earning or
owning them; they solicit him to enter and possess." Genuine politeness
is almost as necessary to enjoyable success as integrity or industry.
We despise servility, but true and uniform politeness is the glory of
any young man. It should be a politeness full of frankness and good
nature, unobtrusive, constant, and uniform in its exhibition to every
class of men. He who is overwhelmingly polite to a celebrity or a nabob
and rude to a laborer because he is a laborer deserves to be despised.
That style of manners which combines self-respect with respect for the
rights and feelings of others, especially if it be warmed up by the
fires of a genial heart, is a thing to be coveted and cultivated, and it
is a thing that pays alike in cash and comfort.
What a man says or does is often an uncertain test of what he is. It is
the way in which he says or does it that furnishes the best index of his
character. It is by the incidental expression given to his thoughts and
feelings by his looks, tones, and gestures, rather than by his deeds and
words, that we prefer to judge him. One may do certain deeds from
design, or repeat certain professions by rote; honeyed words may mask
feelings of hate, and kindly acts may be formed expressly to veil
sinister ends, but the "manner of the man" is not so easily controlled.
The mode in which a kindness is done often affects us more than the deed
itself. The act may have been prompted by one of many questionable
motives, as vanity, pride, or interests; but the warmth or coldness of
address is less likely to deceive. A favor may be conferred so
grudgingly as to prevent any feeling of obligation, or it may be refused
so courteously as to awaken more kindly feelings than if it had been
ungraciously granted.