To come back to the prisoner. The "respectable citizen" was evidently not the whole of him. Under stress he revealed the weakness and dishonesty which led to the forgery. Environment, the temptation, brought them to the surface. We need not say that his character changed. Nevertheless, as we all know, a change of character is possible—so thorough that after emergence from prison no stress of temptation and no assurance from discovery would provoke another theft. On the other hand we cannot conceive of his change from a hero into a coward, nor hardly of his loss of the poetic vein. Environment—the fire and the conditions of prison life—brought those traits out too. But, once out they are out.
Being in search of the essence of character, the really "real man," we cannot accept anything which may vanish or be surmounted, nothing which in the normal course of individual evolution, gone far enough, will for certain be surmounted. No man is essentially a thief, but he may be essentially a hero or a poet or both.
Consider the question in the light of evolution, the evolution of each of us. We sometimes make imaginary pictures of the ripened humanity of the far future, a noble flower of which there are as yet but indications of the bud. Let us add another touch. Let us recognize in that far humanity, however godlike, ourselves. Many, many births and lifetimes and deaths lie between this and that for all of us. But the lines of continuity are unbroken. It is we ourselves who shall be that splendid and radiant humanity. The evolution of the human race means the evolution of the present members of the human race. We shall "meet each other in heaven" because we are always children of the earth that will be that heaven.
We note that some qualities, such as a tendency to theft, have every encouragement to vanish. Sooner or later, in one or another lifetime, they bring about so much disgrace and pain or are found so incompatible with an ever increasing love of right and inner peace, that they are cast out and away, are outgrown and done with. The last dirty fiber is ripped out of the ever perfecting pattern.
On the other hand the germs of some other qualities will have a constant and in the long run irresistible tendency to grow, root and branch.
Shall we say "real character" of traits destined to grow or of those destined to disappear? So far we only use the words of so much as we can see of a man: a poor enough application. We talk of the "respectable citizen," and behold a thief. In the next change the thief "turns out to be a hero"; and whilst we are admiring the hero we are invited to read a volume of poetry.
We had better restrict the words "real character" to that which time shall at last unveil and develop, to the permanent germs and their ripened product; not to the spores and fungi which, however noticeable now, will sometime be entirely cleaned away. There is no thief; there are men who thieve—at present, but who will cease to do so. There are poets and heroes; for these men will not only not cease to create and do, but will create and do more and more worthily as they go forward through time to the great light. There are some men whom no stress of temptation would force into theft. Are there any men in whom no circumstances would evoke some smallest gleam of heroism?
Still we are not clear about real character. For there some qualities, for example courage and love of the race and sensitiveness to the supernal light, which time will perfect in all men. We must put aside all the elements, however splendid, in whose possession men will resemble each other and seek for what will be peculiar to each. Within the unity of essence, apart from common sensitiveness to the great light, there will be essential diversity. And it is to this finally appearing individuality, this uniqueness of each, that the words "real character" properly belong. In a few men only has this germ of true individuality yet achieved much manifestation.
The end of man, said Carlyle, is not a thought, were it the noblest, but a deed.
The aphorism cries aloud for completion. What sort of a deed would be that which had no thought behind it? The end of man is a deed faithfully manifesting a worthy "thought," and the mere writing down of a thought is often its sufficient and only possible manifestation. Even the careful nurture of a thought may be a deed. The universe is the ideation of the divine getting itself written down on the face of substance. Man's entire business is to aid that, to make manifest as much of the divine, the light, as he can come at or get aware of in his inner conscience or consciousness. If he constantly tries to live in that way, the divine will presently take turns and come at him. Inspiration is the final reward of aspiration. But the light has a separate and special ray or aspect of itself in store for each man, so that the whole of it can only shine through all men.