Such
manners will be ours in death, and afterwards, no less than in life.
In the same way, every personal accomplishment and every mental
acquisition has its transient and its permanent side. So far as we
cultivate them to enrich and to ennoble our natures, to enlarge and to
elevate our understandings, to become wiser, better, and more useful to
our fellow-beings, we are cultivating our Characters,--the spiritual
essence of our being; but these very same acquisitions, when sought from
motives wholly selfish and worldly, are not only as transient as the
clothes we wear, but often as useless as the ornaments of a fashionable
costume. The Character will be poor and famished and cold, however great
the variety of such clothing or ornament we may put on. When the
mind has learned to appreciate the difference between reputation and
Character, between the Seeming and the being, it must next decide, if it
would build up a worthy Character, what it desires this should be; for
to build a Character requires a plan, no less than to build a house. A
deep and broad foundation of sound opinions, believed in with the whole
heart, can alone insure safety to the superstructure. Where such a
foundation is not laid, the Character will possess no architectural
unity,--will have no consistency. Its emotions will be swayed by the
impulses of the moment, instead of being governed by principles of
life.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25