Shall I venture to remind you, my dear young friends, that the manifestation of respect for misfortune, suffering, and age, may become one of your attributes by the force of habit strengthening good impulses.
Will you think me deficient in utilitarianism if I recommend to you a cultivation of the power to discern the Beautiful, as a perpetual source of pure and exalted enjoyment? Hard, grinding, soul-trammelling, is the dominion of real life; will we be less worthy of our immortal destinies, that we cherish an inner sense, by which we readily perceive moral beauty, shining as a ray from the very altar of Divinity, or the tokens of the presence of that Divinity afforded by the wonders of the natural world? Let us not be mere beasts of burden, so laden with the cares, the anxieties, or even the duties of life, as to have no eye for the unobtrusive, but often fragrant and lovely flowers, that bloom along the most neglected of our daily paths.
Speaking of the Beautiful, reminds me that ours is the only civilized land where the æsthetical perceptions of the people are not a sufficient safeguard to the preservation of Works of Art, in their humblest as well as most magnificent exhibitions. Nothing short of the brutalizing influence of a Reign of Terror will tempt a Parisian populace to the desecration of these expressions of refinement, taste, and beauty; while among us, not even an ornamental paling, inclosing a private residence, or the colonnade of a public edifice, escapes staring tokens of the presence of this gothic barbarism in our midst.
You will scarcely need to be cautioned against confounding mere curiosity with a liberal and enlightened observation of life and manners. All those indications of undue curiosity respecting the private affairs of others, expressed by listening to conversation not intended for the general ear, watching the asides of society, glancing at letters addressed to another, or asking direct questions of a personal nature, are unmistakable proofs of ignorance of the rules of polished life, though they are not as reprehensible as evil-speaking, a love of scandal, or the practice of violating either the confidence of friends or the sacredness of private conversation.
Though a vast difference is created in this respect by difference of temperament, yet no man can hope to acquire the degree of self-possession that shall fit him for a successful encounter with the ever-varying emergencies demanding its illustration, without repeated and re-repeated struggles and discomfitures. But so invaluable is the treasure, so essential to the legitimate exercise of every faculty of our being, that defeat should only render more indomitable the "will to do, the soul to dare," in persevering endeavors to secure its permanent acquisition.
Let me impress upon you the truth that self-possession is the legitimate result of a well-disciplined mind,
and that it is properly expressed by a quiet and modest bearing.
In conclusion, let me earnestly and affectionately assure you that the formation of right habits, though necessarily attended, for a time, by failures, difficulties, or discouragements, will eventually prove its own all-sufficient reward. Habitude of thought, language, appointment, and manner that shall entitle you to claim
"The good old name of Gentleman,"
once yours, and you will be armed, point of proof, against the exacting capriciousness of fashion, and forever exempted from the tortures often inflicted upon the sensitive, by the insidious invasions of self-distrust!