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Page 28
On your own account you would not allow any unkind word to express such
feelings as I have described, but you cannot or do not conceal them in
the expression of your features, in the very tones of your voice. You
further allow them free indulgence in the depths of your heart; in its
secret recesses you make no allowances for the inferiority of people so
differently constituted, educated, and disciplined from
yourself,--people whom, instead of despising and avoiding, you ought
certainly to pity, and, if possible, to sympathize with.
In this respect, therefore, the control which I recommend to you has
reference even to your much vaunted temper, for though any outward
display of ill-breeding and petulance might be much more opposed to your
respect for yourself, any inward indulgence of the same feelings must be
equally displeasing in the sight of God, and nearly as prejudicial to
the passing on of your spirit towards being "perfect, even as your
Father which is in heaven is perfect."[56]
Besides, though there may be no outbreak of ill-temper at the time your
annoyance is excited, nor any external manifestation of contempt even in
your expressive countenance, you will certainly be unable to preserve
kindness and respect of manner towards those whose errors and failings
are not met by internal self-control. You will be contemptuously
heedless of the assertions of those whose prevarication you have even
once experienced; those who have once taunted you with obligation will
never be again allowed to confer a favour upon you; you will avoid all
future intercourse with those whose unkind and taunting words have
wounded your refinement and self-respect. All this would contribute to
the formation of a fine character in a romance, for every thing that I
have spoken of implies your own truth and honesty, your generous nature,
your delicate and sensitive habits of mind, your dread of inflicting
pain. For all these admirable qualities I give you full credit, and, as
I said before, they would make an heroic character in a romance. In real
life, however, they, every one of them, require strict self-control to
form either a Christian character, or one that will confer peace and
happiness. You may be all that I have described, and I believe you to be
so, while, at the same time your severe judgments and unreasonable
expectations may be productive of unceasing discomfort to yourself and
all around you. Your friends plainly see that you expect too much from
them, that you are annoyed when their duller perceptions can discover no
grounds for your annoyance, that you decline their offers of service
when they are not made in exactly the refined manner your imagination
requires. Your annoyance may seldom or never express itself in words,
but it is nevertheless perceptible in the restraint of your manner, in
your carelessness of sympathy on any point with those who generally
differ from you, in the very tone of your voice, in the whole character
of your conversation. Gradually the gulf becomes wider and wider that
separates you from those among whom it has pleased God that your lot
should be cast.
You cannot yet be at all sensible of the dangers I am now pointing out
to you. You cannot yet understand the consequences of your present want
of self-control in this particular point. The light of the future alone
can waken them out of present darkness into distinct and fatal
prominence.
Habit has not yet formed into an isolating chain that refinement of mind
and loftiness of character which your want of self-control may convert
into misfortunes instead of blessings. Whenever, even now, a sense of
total want of sympathy forces itself upon you, you console yourself with
such thoughts as these: "Sheep herd together, eagles fly alone,"[57]&c.
Small consolation this, even for the pain your loneliness inflicts on
yourself, still less for the breach of duties it involves.
There must, besides, be much danger in a habit of mind that leads you to
attribute to your own superiority those very unpleasantnesses which
would have no existence if that superiority were more complete. For, in
truth, if your spiritual nature asserted its due authority over the
animal, you would habitually exercise the power which is freely offered
you, of supreme control over the hidden movements of your heart as well
as over the outward expression of the lips.
I would strongly urge you to consider every evidence of your
isolation--of your want of sympathy with others--as marks of moral
inferiority; then, from your conscientiousness of mind, you would seek
anxiously to discover the causes of such isolation, and you would
endeavour to remove them.
Nothing is more difficult than the perpetual self-control necessary for
this purpose. Constant watchfulness is required to subdue every feeling
of superiority in the contemplation of your own character, and constant
watchfulness to look upon the words and actions of others through, as it
were, a rose-coloured medium. The mind of man has been aptly compared to
cut glass, which reflects the very same light in various colours as well
as different shapes, according to the forms of the glass. Display then
the mental superiority of which you are justly conscious, by moulding
your mind into such forms as will represent the words and actions of
others in the most favourable point of view. The same illustration will
serve to suggest the best manner of making allowances for those whose
minds are unmanageable, because uneducated and undisciplined. They
cannot _see_ things in the same point of view that you do; how
unreasonable then is it of you to expect that they should form the same
estimate of them.
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