The elements of character

by Mary G. Ware

Admitting that men differ from each other, not in kind, but in degree, the question arises, Are all men capable of an equal degree of development? This may best be answered by comparison. All men are alike in the general conformation of their bodies; all have the same number of physical organs, designed for the same purposes. The relative power of these organs is, however, very different in different individuals. One has a fine muscular frame, and delights in exercises of physical strength, while effort of the brain is a weariness to him. Another has a finely developed brain, and delights in intellectual labor, while his strength of muscle is hardly sufficient for the absolute needs of life. One has the digestion of an ostrich, while another lives only by painful abstinence; and so on with indefinite variety. We know that much may be done by well-directed effort to overcome the weaknesses and imperfections of the body; but still there is a limit to this, and all men cannot be strong and healthy alike. So it is with the powers of the mind. All men have the same number of powers,—this constitutes their humanity; but the relative force of their development varies in each individual. We know that a determined will works wonders in overcoming the defects of the body, and it can do more in overcoming the defects of the mind, because the spiritual body of man is far more docile and flexible to the will than the natural body; but there must be limitations here likewise: still, progress is eternal, and no man can tell beforehand of how much he is capable.

In cultivating the powers of the mind, the first step is to admit distinctly to one's self the fact of human responsibility; to feel that we are stewards to whom the Lord has intrusted certain talents, and that we are responsible to him for the use we make of them. Indolence will perhaps tell us that we are of very little consequence, and that it is not worth while for us to trouble ourselves about developing our understandings; that it is vanity in us to suppose that we can be of much use in the world; that we have but little leisure, and may as well amuse ourselves with books and society; for we need recreation, wearied as we are with the cares of life. Let us answer each of these excuses by itself; and first, we are of so little consequence. If the tempter take this form to slacken your efforts, tell him you are one of God's children, and therefore, by your birthright, of eternal consequence; that he who is faithful in the least things thereby proves his capacity for being faithful in much, and that by showing your willingness to serve the Lord in the small things of life, you are fitting yourself for serving him in large things, if not in this world, yet in the world to come. Moreover, is not every one of the highest consequence to himself; and is not the least of human beings as much interested to save his own soul as the greatest? Then, as to use in this world, you are responsible to the fullest extent of your abilities for the influence you exert in your sphere as entirely as is the greatest of human beings in his. No one is so small that he brings no influence to bear upon the social circle; no one so insignificant that he does not exert an influence, even by the expression of his countenance, though he may speak no word. Where can we find a circle that is not shadowed, as by a cloud, if one countenance appears within it darkened by sullenness, ill-humor, or discontent? Where one that is not warmed and cheered, as by a sunbeam, if one enters it whose features glow with good-humor, contentment, and satisfaction? Then does not the command to love our neighbor make us even responsible for the expressions our faces wear? In relation to the plea for recreation and amusement, it can readily be shown how these may be made subservient to a true and high cultivation of the understanding. While few are slow to admit our accountability in all that relates to the cultivation of the Affections, many seem to suppose, that in what relates to the Understanding we may, without wrong, follow our own inclinations. This opinion comes from a false estimate of the nature and uses of the Understanding. If considered as a mere receptacle for Latin and Greek, Mathematics and Metaphysics, Science and Literature, we may, without moral turpitude or virtue, abstractly considered, follow our own inclinations; but the Understanding will all the time be growing either stronger or weaker, wiser or more foolish, whether we study them or whether we let them alone. This action of the Understanding cannot go on without influencing the Affections. The one is as much the gift of God as the other, and each alike demands a healthful nutriment. An Understanding whose attributes are ignorance and folly can never promote a healthful growth of the Affections.

It has been already said that the Understanding of a great majority of human beings can be reached only through its imaginative side. Every one who is accustomed to children knows that this is universally true of them. Tell a child an abstract truth, and it falls dead upon his ear; but illustrate the same truth in a little story, and he is quick to estimate its justice. This continues true of most persons during their whole lives, so that it is vain to attempt touching their minds in any other way than by presenting them with some image illustrating the truth inculcated. Those who are capable of receiving an abstract truth without such an image are frequently so from the fact that the moment such a truth is presented to their Understanding, their Imagination is prompt to furnish the corresponding image. Unless this is done either by the speaker or the listener, the truth is apt to be only a useless piece of lumber stored away in the thoughts. The whole secret of the fascinating power of the novelist lies in his telling us of all that is most interesting to humanity, and presenting everything to the mind in images.

Most persons have so many duties to perform, that they have little time for voluntary employment, and then they want recreation, which, if they read, they say they can gain only through works of Imagination. There is nothing to object to in this, if such works be well selected and read wisely. There are many bad ways of reading novels; but there are two to be especially avoided; firstly, vitiating the Affections by reading impure novels; and secondly, weakening the powers of the Understanding by glancing through novels merely for the sake of the story. To read novels of doubtful or bad morality is as likely to corrupt the Affections as to associate with low and wicked companions. There is an abundant supply of pure and noble compositions of this sort on which the Imagination may feed without fear. If it morbidly craves the licentious pictures that come from the pen of such writers as Ainsworth or George Sand, its longings should be resisted as steadfastly as those which incline us to the gaming table or other scenes of licentious indulgence. On the other hand, the danger to the Understanding from skimming novels is far too much overlooked. It is not recreation, but dissipation, not a renewal, but a destruction, of the powers to read in this way. If you would be benefited by what you read, learn to read critically. Look at the characters, and see if they be natural and well drawn; observe the morality, and see if it be true or false; examine the style, and see if it be good or bad, graceful or awkward, distinct or vague. Novel-writing is one of the fine arts, and by looking upon it as such, you may cultivate your taste and discrimination to an extent you little dream of.

Imagination is the marriage of Thought and Affection, and the Fine Arts are its first-born children, and represent humanity in all its phases more fully and truly than any other department of art or science. What we know as the useful arts, which are born of man's love for physical ease and pleasure, are of comparatively modern date; but history goes not back to the time when the mind of man first took delight in fashioning and admiring the products of the fine arts. Many suppose them God-given and coeval with the birth of man. Music, painting, sculpture, poetry, and romance are the five departments of the fine arts. When these are studied and loved merely for amusement, they are of little or no use; if they are made vehicles for filling the mind with impure and evil images, they are shocking abuses; but if they subserve pure and holy purposes, elevating the soul towards all that is beautiful and good, they are true Apostles of the Word. Their ministrations are almost if not quite universal. It would be hard to find a human being whose soul is not stirred by one or other of them.

Comparatively few persons have it in their power to enjoy the delight and the refining influence that are derived from the highest exhibitions of skill in those departments of the fine arts that address themselves to the eye and the ear; but poetry and romance, the most intellectual and the most varied of them all, are accessible to every one. As those blessings that are far off and difficult to be attained are usually those which are most highly prized, we often find persons sighing for the culture to be obtained from music, painting, and sculpture, and overlooking or undervaluing the higher culture to be derived from poetry and romance. The best gifts of Heaven are always those which are most universal. Let any one read the plays of Shakespeare, the poems of Milton, and the novels of Scott carefully and critically as he would study a gallery of pictures, and he will find his taste refined and elevated as much as it could be by a visit to the Vatican. The genius of these authors is to the full as high and noble and original as that of Raphael, Angelo, or Titian. The means of culture are not far-fetched and dear-bought. They lie around us everywhere, and to make use of them is a luxurious recreation of the mind. What mother, wearied and worn by the cares of maternity, what laborer, exhausted with toil, what student, faint with striving for fame, but would be refreshed and renewed for the warfare of life by forgetting it all for a little while in the realms of the ideal world?

The common, vulgar misuse of novel-reading by the silly, the empty-headed, and the corrupt, should not blind us to its benefits. There are those who in music, painting, and sculpture find only nutriment for sensuality and impurity. Shall we, therefore, deny to all, and banish from the world the refining ministrations of beauty in form and color and sweet sounds? As justly may we wage war upon the wayside flowers because the children are now and then tardy at school from stopping to gather them. The Creator could never have strown beauty broadcast upon the face of the earth if it had no use. The very abundance of this nutriment offered to our love of beauty is evidence of its value; the very fact that we can abuse this love so fearfully is proof of its capacity for elevated usefulness.

Reading good works of Imagination in the thoughtful way that has been described will be very likely to rouse an action in the mind that will make it crave something more solid; and all should learn, if possible, to love instructive books. The brain that is overtasked by muscular labor—for the nervous energy of the brain is exhausted by physical effort as well as by mental—is the only one that is excusable for refreshing itself only with images from the ideal world. There are Sabbaths of rest to all sometimes, when opportunity may be found to gain something of a more nutritious quality; when, through biography we may learn to know some good and great character that will ever after stand in the mind an image of excellence to cheer us on our way, and make us feel with joy that there is power in us to do likewise; or perhaps some book of science that will enlarge our ideas of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator of us all. It should ever be remembered, that those whose minds are empty of images of goodness and truth are, almost of necessity, constantly becoming more and more full of images of evil and falsehood. Jealousy, envy, discontent, and love of scandal, are among the earliest products of an idle, empty mind. We are not, however, dependent upon, books for the means of cultivating the Imagination. There is a training of this power within itself, a morality of Imagination, that daily life compels us to observe if we would be practical, moral beings.

The first requisites in a healthy, well-developed Imagination are truth and distinctness. To those who deem Imagination but another name for fiction and falsehood, it may seem a contradiction in terms to talk of a true Imagination; but it is not so. Works of fiction charm us always in proportion as they seem true, and it is the morbid Imagination only that delights in falsehood. We sometimes see persons who, without apparent intention of falsehood, seem incapable of speaking the truth. If they relate a circumstance that has passed under their own observation, or describe anything that they have seen, they add here and diminish there, distort this and give a new color to that, in such a manner that the hearer receives an impression of nothing as it really is. If there seem to be no malicious or evil design in all this, such persons are commonly called very imaginative; they should be called persons of unregulated, unprincipled Imaginations. They do not bring Imagination under the sway of conscience, and their power of appreciating the truth will grow less and less until Imagination becomes a living lie.

Visionary persons form another class of those who do not regulate Imagination by the laws of him who is truth itself. With these, Imagination is as false in relation to that which is to come, as with the last described in relation to that which has already been. In their plans of life they reason from fancy instead of from fact, and their Imaginations are filled with fantastic visions of things impossible, instead of the clear, bright images of that, which may rationally be expected to come to pass. Such persons perpetually wasting their powers by trying to do so many things that they can do nothing well, or by striving to do some one thing that is impossible; thus rendering themselves comparatively useless in society, and often even mischievous. To avoid this error, it is needful to go back perpetually to Thought in order to obtain a solid foundation for Imagination to build upon. As Imagination passes to and fro between Thought and Affection, it must remember that it is a messenger from one to the other, and must not invent tales on the way, and so deceive Affection into acts of folly. The facts of the message must be precisely such as Thought gave them, while their costume may be such as Imagination would have it. Thus the Affections will be roused to action in proportion as the eloquence of the Imagination is more or less intense, When it speaks in "words that burn," if it speak from itself, it will rouse the Affections to wild fanaticism; but if it speak from Thought, it will waken enthusiasm in the heart, such as shall bear it steadfastly onward in the path of duty, "without haste and without rest." Distinctness of Imagination may be cultivated by carefully observing things we wish to remember, and then calling up their forms before the mind's eye, and endeavoring to describe them just as they are, in words, by writing, or by drawing; and then reexamining to see where we have erred, and correcting our mistakes. If this be done from a genuine love of truth, the Imagination will soon become accurate and trustworthy. In reading, strive to bring what is read before the mind's eye, and so impress it upon the memory in images. This process quickens the power of memory, and enables it to retain much more than it otherwise could. If the writer be imaginative, it is easily done; but if not, we must strive to make up for his deficiencies by our own efforts. Reading history and travels, constant reference to maps and pictures fixes facts upon the memory simply by transferring them to the Imagination. Memory is not a faculty by itself. What we only think about we remember feebly; what we image in our minds we remember much more strongly; what we love we never forget while we continue to love it.