For there is nothing that men have a more instinctive discernment and a greater aversion for than for self-seeking. Even the simplest, even little children, yes, even animals, quickly find the selfish out, in spite of all the pretence with which they surround themselves. Whoever would acquire a strong influence over men must give up thoughts of self-advantage. That is the surest way. For this reason children often like grandparents more than parents, because they feel that in their love is less of self; the parents are too much wrapped up in their own concerns. Even the worst pessimists seek love, and no egotist is earnest at bottom in his praise of egotism. But they despair of men’s ability to be other than selfish, and they may be taught otherwise only by repeated deeds; the mere phrases of love have long been familiar to them, and they estimate them at about their correct value. It does no good, therefore, to speak to them much of love; that will only be misunderstood. At the most, speak of friendliness and public benevolence; it seems to be less, yet is really more.
This spirit, then, is absolutely necessary if you would live in the world without disgust at it; therefore acquire this spirit at any cost.
To understand the nature of any individual it is important to know his derivation. Women in especial follow, almost without exception, the character of their family, sons as a rule that of the mother or the mother’s father, daughters oftener the paternal side. The proverb that “the apple falls not far from its stem” indicates, therefore, a strong presumption. Only, we often do not know the derivation sufficiently well, and besides, with God’s mercy, a man can even break away from a bad ancestry. As a matter of fact, there are no “hereditary encumbrances” that can not be shaken off by God’s mercy and man’s will. The assumption of such an unalterable fate is one of the greatest sacrileges a man can make himself guilty of. On the other hand, in the same limited sense, a certain aristocratic tendency is warranted. Noteworthy individual characteristics, such as courage, proper self-confidence, a natural fearlessness of men, fineness of taste in all the matters of life, do not develop, as a rule, in the first generation after breaking the yoke of slavery and oppression; for these are largely transmitted qualities. For this reason the great pioneers of political and spiritual freedom rarely spring from the lowest stratum of the people, but from a middle stratum already trained in these things, or even, often enough, from aristocracy itself. It is, therefore, a great misfortune, almost a transgression against one’s posterity, when a highly cultured man marries below his plane of culture; for thus he takes a step back again.
In this connection, there is due to oneself and to others a certain right which parents and teachers often forget. No one can easily change his whole natural disposition; one can much more easily bring that disposition to a higher perfection in its own kind. That is to say, the phlegmatic man can attain to the noble calm of wisdom, the sanguine man to a self-sacrificing activity for others, the choleric man to a strong championship for whatever is great. A false estimate of this natural temperament, or attempts to break it, usually lead to deplorable half-results, where something complete might have been attained.
We rightly learn to understand people only in their activities, the men at their work, the women in their house affairs; best in their difficulties and sorrows, least in social intercourse, especially at hotels and summer resorts. The acquaintances made there often turn out disappointing afterward. It is, generally speaking, an unwholesome feature of human intercourse nowadays. People become acquainted with one another, and yet not acquainted, when they live and eat together day after day. One can not keep aloof altogether without appearing supercilious, and one can not be too intimate without the risk of making connections that would otherwise have been avoided.
It is easiest to know people by what they regard as their real aim in life; if this aim is power or pleasure, they are not wholly to be trusted.
In his later years, the outlines of a man’s character ordinarily come out much more clearly than in his earlier. Real piety reveals itself in the patient bearing of the manifold burdens of age, fictitious piety in impatience and in a religion that becomes more and more formal. Avarice, envy, covetousness, anger, the love of honor and praise, and even, at times, the desire of secret, sensual pleasure, come with elementary, unmistakable force to light as the ruling passions of life; and the man pronounces his own judgment in the sight of his fellows. Rarely does any one, like Augustus, carry a rôle through to the end, and even this great actor was not successful. On the other hand, no one can read Cromwell’s last prayer and think him a hypocrite, unless he is one himself.
And finally, sorrows play their part in revealing human nature. In any great sorrow the thoughts of men are disclosed. Envy comes to light to rejoice; generosity, to help; and indifference, to pass by on the other side. Whoever has had no thorough experience of this in person, does not know men. In the first part of life, when experience is still small, the greatest danger in one’s attitude to men is that of considering them of too much importance; in the second, that of becoming too indifferent to them.
There is yet another and quite different source of the knowledge of human nature, but a source not to be desired for any one not already acquainted with it; I mean the power possessed by the nervously disordered. In such cases there is a very clear physical intuition as to the kind of nature there is in other people, of whom the one may have as quieting and refreshing an influence upon the sick man as clear, cool water, while the other only excites and frets. Such is the knowledge of men the Bible ascribes to those “possessed of evil spirits.” But these are diseased conditions which ought not to be, and which should not be needlessly meddled with.