DECISION OF CHARACTER.
Decision of character as important to young women as to others. Why it
is so. Illustration of the subject by a Scripture anecdote. Misery and
danger of indecision. How to reform. Perseverance. Errors of modern
education.
This trait of character has been recommended to young men too
exclusively. I know of no reason why it is not equally important to
young women, and equally becoming the sex in general. One thing, at any
rate, I do know; which is, that thousands of young women--and the world
through their imperfection--suffer, in no trifling degree, from the
want of this virtue.
I call it a _virtue._ What is there that produces more evil--directly
or indirectly--than the want of power, when occasion requires it, to
say YES, or NO? As long as with half the human race--and the more
influential half, too-_no_ does not mean _no,_ and _yes_ does not mean
_yes,_ there will be a vast amount of vice, and crime, and suffering in
the world, as the natural consequence. And is not that which is the
cause of so much evil, nearly akin to vice? And is any thing more
entitled to the name of virtue, than its opposite?
Let me illustrate my meaning by a Scripture example. When Balak, the
king of Moab, undertook to extort a curse upon Israel, from Balaam, the
latter did not say _no_; but only said, the Lord would not permit him
to do what was required. He left neither to Balak nor to his
messengers, any reason to conclude that his virtue was invulnerable. On
the contrary, as the event plainly shows, his answer was just such a
one as encouraged them to prosecute their attempts to seduce him.
Now it is precisely this sort of refusal, direct or implied, in a
thousand cases which might be named, which brings down evil, not only
upon those who make it, but upon others. They mean _no_, perhaps; and
yet it is not certain that the decision is--like the laws of the Medea
and Persians--irrevocable. Something in the tone, or manner, or both
combined, leaves room to hope for success in time to come. "The woman
who deliberates, is lost," we are told: and is it not so? Do not many
who say _no_ with hesitancy, still retain the power and the disposition
to deliberate? And is it not so understood?
It is--I repeat it--a great misfortune--a very great one--not to know
how and when to say NO. Indeed, the undecided are more than
unfortunate; they are very unsafe. They who cannot say _no_, are never
their own keepers; they are always, more or less, in the power and at
the command of others. They may form a thousand resolutions a day, to
withstand in the hour of temptation; and yet, if the temptation comes,
and they have not acquired decision of character, it is ten to one but
they will yield to it.
Is it too much to say, that half the world are miserable on this
account,--miserable themselves, and a source of misery to others? Is it
too much to say, that decision of character is more important to young
women than to any other class of persons whatever?
But as it is in every thing or almost every thing else, so it is in
this matter: they who would reform themselves, must begin with the
smaller matters of life. The great trials--those of decision no less
than those of other traits of human character--come but seldom; and
they who allow themselves, habitually, to vacillate, and hesitate, and
remain undecided, in the every-day concerns of life, will inevitably do
so in those larger matters which recur less frequently.
No one will succeed in acquiring true decision of character, without
perseverance. A few feeble efforts, continued a day or two, or a week,
are by no means sufficient to change the character or form the habit.
The efforts must be earnest, energetic, and unremitted; and must be
persevered in through life.
I am not ignorant that many philosophers and physiologists have denied
that woman possesses the power of perseverance in what she undertakes,
in any eminent degree. A British writer, distinguished for his
boldness, if not for his metaphysical acuteness, maintains with much
earnestness, that woman, by her vital organization, is much wanting in
perseverance. This notion may or may not be true. Certain it is,
however, that she has her peculiarities, as well as man his. But
whether she has little or much native power of perseverance in what she
undertakes, is not so important a question, as whether she makes a
proper use of the power she possesses.
"Who does the best his circumstance allows,
Does well; acts nobly: angels could no more."
We are required, however, to do that best which "circumstance" does
allow, as much as is the highest seraph; and woman is not the less
bound to persevere in matters where perseverance would become her,
because her native power of perseverance is feeble, if indeed it is so.
On the contrary, this very fact makes the duty of perseverance to the
utmost extent of the means God has put into her hands, the more
urgent--especially as _small powers_ are apt to be overlooked.
There is one habit which should be cultivated, not only for its
usefulness in general, but especially for its value in leading to true
decision of character. I mean, the habit of doing every thing which it
devolves upon us to do at all, precisely _at the time_ when it ought to
be done. Every thing in human character goes to wreck, under the reign
of procrastination, while prompt action gives to all things a
corresponding and proportional life and energy. Above all, every thing
in the shape of decision of character is lost by delay. It should be a
sacred rule with every individual who lives in the world for any higher
purpose than merely to live, never to put off, for a single moment, a
thing which ought to be done immediately--if it be no more than the
cleaning or changing of a garment.
When I see a young woman neglecting, from day to day, her
correspondents--her pile of letters constantly increasing, and her
dread of putting pen and thoughts to paper accumulating as rapidly--I
never fail to conclude, at once, that whatever other excellent
qualities she may possess, she is a stranger to the one in question.
She who cannot make up her mind to answer a letter when she knows it
ought to be answered--and in general a letter ought to be answered soon
after it is received--will not be likely to manifest decision in other
things of still greater importance. The same is true, as I have said
already several times, in regard to indecision in other things of even
less moment than the writing of a letter. It is manifest especially in
regard to the matter of rising in the morning. She who knows it is time
to get up, and yet cannot decide to do so, and consequently lies
yawning a little longer, "and yet a little longer still," can never, I
am bold to say, while this indolence and indecision are indulged, be
decided in any thing else--at least; habitually.
She may, indeed, be so by fits and starts; but the habit will never be
so confirmed as to be regarded as an essential element of her character.
Nearly all the habits of modern female education--I mean the
_fashionable_ education of the family and school--are entirely at war
with the virtue I am endeavoring to inculcate. It would be a miracle,
almost, if a young woman who has been educated in a fashionable family,
under the eye of a fashionable mother, and at a fashionable boarding
school, under the direction of a teacher whose main object is to please
her patrons, should come out to the world, without being quite
destitute of all true decision of character. If it were the leading
object of our boarding schools to form the habit of indecision, they
could not succeed better than many of them now do. They furnish to the
world a set of beings who are any thing but what the world wants, and
who are more likely to do almost any thing else, than to be the means
of reforming it.