Ourselves and others; or, Personality and intercourse

Front matter

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you.

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.

Preface

Lessons from one man's experiences and observations will not be of value to all. But lessons from any man's experiences and observations will be of value to some. No man stands, in his feelings and sympathies, for his entire race. But every man, in his sympathies and feelings, stands for a class.

Hence it is, that whatever truths have made a profound impression on a man in the progress of his life-course are likely to make a correspondent impression on others who are like him, if he can bring those truths with any vividness before them. And when a series of related truths have excited interest in their detached separateness, they will hardly fail to excite fresh interest in their exhibited relation to one another and to a common central truth.

o PREFACE,

The essays in this volume are an outcome of their writer's observings and experiencings in his varied life-course. They were received with interest as editorial contributions in the pages of The Sunday School Times, while appearing there, one by one, during a term of ten years or more; and their republication has been urged by many who desire them for preservation in a permanent form. They are now presented in a new light, in a logical order for the elucidation and emphasis of a truth which is common to them all.

The gaining of the thoughts of this volume has not been without cost to its writer. His hope is that the considering of them will not be without stimulus and profit to its readers.

H. C. T.

Philadelphia,

Being Understood, as a Cause of Misunderstandings 193

XX. What Blunderers We Are I 203

ALL BY ONE'S SELF.

Notwithstanding all that is said— and said truly — about the help and comfort of human love and human friendship, about the duty of living for others, and the impossibility of living all by one's self, the truth remains that in his realest personality every man does, and must, live absolutely by himself, without the possibility of being fully understood by any one else; having his own peculiar feelings, duties, destiny — unshared, in the truest sense, by any human being whatsoever.

" We are spirits clad in veils ; Man by man was never seen ; All our deep communing fails To remove the shadowy screen.

" Heart to heart was never known ; Mind to mind did never meet; We are columns left alone Of a temple once complete."

lO OURSELVES AND OTHERS.

"The heart knoweth its own bitterness; And a stranger doth not intermeddle with its joy.'*

In the tabernacle of every human soul there is an outer court, for the free coming and going of all one's chosen people; and an inner court, or a holy place, where only the priests of one's affections may find admission. But beyond the veil of the heart's holy place there is an inner sanctuary, which only the high-priest of one's own personality can enter. That holy of holies is not lighted from without. It is curtained in on every side. It would be in darkness even to the high-priest himself, unless the shekinah of God's presence were there to give light to the one within.

And no high-priest of the foul ever yet made full disclosure of all that he had learned and felt in that innermost sanctuary of his being. If he should attempt it his lips would be sealed in silence, like the lips of Zacharias when he had received the message of Gabriel which he might not yet disclose; and his hand would be stayed by his heart before he could transcribe it for the eyes of others.

" For no men or women that live to-day. Be they as good or as bad as they may. Ever would dare to leave In faintest pencil or boldest ink, All they truly and really think, What they have said, and what they have done. What they have lived, and what they have felt, Under the stars or under the sun."

Even if we devoutly wished to disclose ourselves wholly and unreservedly to another, it would not be possible for us to do so, while the veiling of our spirits in the flesh is as complete as now. How could a loving mother make clear to her infant child her own heart with its shapings by the experiences of the years that she has lived? How could a person with open eyes portray the beauties of the world about him to one who was bom blind? How could two persons of different nationalities have free and unrestricted converse while each had but an imperfect knowledge of the other's language? Every soul has its own unique experiences, has seen its own visions, and puts its own meaning into every word of its speech; and every other soul is deaf, or blind, or limited in intellect, in its effort to comprehend the disclosures of another's soul.

None of us are fully understood in this life. None of us really want to be. All of us would be glad to have our best side better known than now, — our highest aims and aspirations to be disclosed clearly to those whom we love. Most of us feel that we should be the gainers in the good opinion of our dear ones if only our nobler motives and desires in their behalf, and our purest and most unselfish endeavors for their welfare, were laid bare to them. But none of us would be willing that our worst thoughts, our lowest imaginings, our most ignoble feelings, should be plainly recognized by any other human being —even our best loved and most partial friend or " other self." And against the mental gaze of the common herd we shut ourselves up as within walls of adamant

Every now and then we are startled by the unexpected disclosure of some man's character as utterly at variance with the popular estimate of him; and the exclamation, "I should never have thought that of /tint/'' shows how little we know of the inner life of those who are about us on every side. A look of calmness on many a man's face may be only as the lava crust above the consuming fires of the slumbering volcano ; and the play of a surface-smile on a sunny countenance is perhaps but the reflected light which dances over the ice-covered stream — ^whose current sweeps on beneath, in its unchecked and resistless flow.

We do not fully know the truest life of those whom we know best. Some of them are far worthier than we suppose; and others are far less worthy. This is as true of those nearest us as of those with whom our acquaintance is but casual ; and it is true likewise with reference to ourselves, as viewed and judged by others.

" We hold our dear ones with a firm, strong g^sp, We hear their voices, look into their eyes : And yet, betwixt us, in that clinging clasp, A distance lies."

The more there is to a person, the less likely he is to be fully known and understood by others; and indeed the greater is his shrinking from the full disclosure of himself to others. It is easy to see the bottom of a shallow brooklet; but who can fathom the ocean's depths? A mind that is open and empty can be known to all, but not so the mind that is densely packed with knowledge and thought The profounder and more delicate natures are as much more retiring and secluded under observation, in contrast with the superficial and ruder natures, as the eye is more sensitive than the palm of the hand to a touch.

As Emerson puts it: " Those constitutions which can bear, in open day, the rough dealing of the world, must be of that mean and average structure, such as iron, and salt, atmospheric air, and water. But there are metals like potassium, and sodium, which, to be kept pure, must be kept under naphtha." Hence it is that " the best are accused of exclusiveness,'* because of " that necessity of isolation which genius feels. Each must stand on his glass tripod if he would keep his electricity. Even Swedenborg, whose theory of the universe is based on affection, and who reprobates to weariness the danger, and vice of pure intellect, is constrained to make an extraordinary exception: 'There are also angels who do not live consociated, but separate, house and house; these dwell in the midst of heaven because they are the best of angels/ '*

Concealment of one's innermost self is to a certain extent a duty — ^a duty to which the most sensitive and refined natures are most keenly alive. Lord Bacon says : " Nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as body; and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions, if they be not altogether open. As for talkers and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal. For he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not. Therefore set it down that a habit of secrecy is both politic and moral." Let none of us wonder, therel6 OURSELVES AND OTHERS.

fore, that we are unable to read fully our best friends. That which is still a mystery in their conduct and spirit — ^the something beyond all that we can see or know of their characters— may be the highest proof of their superiority. It is because there is so much in them that we cannot understand it all. Their distinctive pre-eminence as " the best of angels" renders them unable to disclose their inner selves unreservedly to us — even if they would ; and forbids them to attempt doing so — even if they could.

And as in one's feelings and character, so in one's duty and destiny, each man must be all by himself in the world. No man's duty can be done for him. A man of commanding influence, for example, can secure a good position for his son; but he cannot fill that position for his son, neither will any power of his enable his son to fill it. The son must stand or fall by himself, so far as filling that place is concerned. And how helpless we are toward enabling our friends to command from others the love and admiration which we would like them to have! Entreaty to this end is of no avail; nor will indignation over what we deem the poor taste or bad judgment of others accomplish anything in this direction.

Each friend of ours must be by himself — in the work he does, in the credit or loss he sustains, and in the confidence and affection accorded to him. And so it must be with ourselves. And when our friend's work, and when our work, is done, then " each one of us shall give account of himself to God." Not as families, not as churches, not as communities, but as individuals, must we "be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad."

Even where love is holiest, and where intimacy is closest, there comes an hour when he whom the Father has called must say to those nearest and dearest to him, "Tarry ye here, while I go yonder." Each one by himself came alone into this world; each one by himself has his own character and his own duties as he goes on through this world; each one by himself — even though he be redeemed by the blood of Christ, and be bound by the tenderest of ties to others who are also Christ's — must pass out from this world to meet his Saviour all by himself.

" Not sweeping up together,

In whirlwind or iii cloud, In the hush of the summer weather,

Or when storms are thundering loud; But one by one we go, In the sweetness none may know."

THE DUTY OF BEING ONE'S SELF,

Not imitation, but individuality, is recognized by every true man as the ideal of his personality. "I must be myself/' he says, "whatever comes of it" To seem another than one's self is insincerity, if not hypocrisy; and hypocrisy is as despicable as sincerity is admirable. And the ideal of the true man for himself, is the ideal of others for the true man. "Be yourself, at every cost," is the counsel which his best advisers are constantly sounding in his ears.

" To thine own self be true ; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.**

Yet, as a simple matter of fact, those persons who are most desirous of being and seeming their own selves are least likely to know what it is to be one's self, or to know what

'9 they mean by the term "one's self," when they express their sense of the duty of being one's self; and, again, those persons who most urgently press the importance of this duty on others, are as ignorant of its nature and scope as are those on whom they press it. What is "one's self" ? Is every man's self a unit in spirit and purpose and aim, without any conflict of feelings, or any struggle ber tween contending interests of being? Or is one's self, in most cases, a seeming mass of contradictions, with varying spirit, with diverse purposes and aims, with a ceaseless conflict of feelings, and with a wearisome struggle of ever-contending interests of being, going on below the surface of the outer personality? Is there no such thing as one's better self, as distinct from one's worse self; one's nobler self, as distinct from one's unworthier self? If, indeed, one's self be, or seems to be, a double self or a cluster of selves, which self is the real self that one ought to be, or ought to seem to be, in order to be sincere beyond all doubt or question?

What is one's self? What is it to be one's self? What is it to seem one's self?

Must a man, in order to be himself, indulge his natural appetites and passions, and follow the bent of his temper and inclinations ? Must he refuse to recognize a difference between his lower nature and his higher, and simply give expression at all times to his inclinings and impellings of the hour? If, on the other hand, he deliberately conceals all that which he or others would count evil in itself, or unworthy of himself as a man, and shows out only that which he and they would be ready to commend as admirable, how can he be said to be acting sincerely, or to be seeming or being himself? Is one's self, in short, one's best self, or one's worst self? Is seeming one's self seeming one's noblest self, or seeming one's unworthier self? What is one's self? What is it to be one's self? What is it to seem one's self?

One's real self is surely not his lowest and worst self, against which his higher and better self is zealously contending. No man

>vould admit that that was so in his own case, nor would any man claim that it would be fair to judge his fellow by that standard. On the other hand, one's real self is not himself in the direction of his highest and best promptings, if he be all the while resisting those promptings, and deliberately choosing a lower plane of living and being. One's real self is himself at his best, in the direction of his aspirings and strivings; it is himself as he wants to be, and as he is trying to be, rather than himself as he now is. Browning's David gives the real measure of every true man's nobler self:

** *Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do ! *' .

This is the self which a man ought to be and to seem to be, and this is the self which others should desire a man to be and to seem to be. A true man is often prompted by his worst self to say or to do that which he knows to be wrong, while his better self protests against his yielding to that prompting. If at such a time he were to speak out, or do, the wrong to which his worst self prompts him, and against which his better self protests, he would so fer misrepresent or conceal his best self, by bringing his worst self into exclusive prominence. Thus doing he would fail of being himself, by being himself; fail of being his whole self, by being the lesser part of himself; feil of being the self that he is trying to be, by seeming to be the self that he is trying not to be. His real self at such a time is that self which is before him as an ideal, and toward which he is struggling, — however unsuccessfully. In this sense it is true that a man's real self is ordinarily a better self than his present self; for his real self is that which he strives to be, while his present self exhibits his lack in the direction of his strivings. ♦

"Petroleum V. Nasby" said, at one time: "A large part of my religion consists in trying all the while not to be as mean as I know how." And there is a sense in which every man's religion ought to have more or less of fcy Google that element in its practical workings. With ourselves as we are^ and with our constant promptings and impellings toward evil as we find them, it is our evident duty to be better than we are, and to show ourselves as we know that we ought to be, instead of as we find that we are inclined to be. Being one's self is, in fact, having control of one's self, rather than being controlled by one's self.

But says one, " If I feel angry, oughtn't I to show that that is my feeling? How can I be sincere when I simulate a feeling which is not real ? " The proper guide of conduct is conviction of duty, not feeling about duty. Whatever you may /<?^/, you ought to do and ^ say that which is right There is no merit iji mere sincerity. Sincerity^ like consistency, is commendable only when it is in the direction of the right If .you feel the impellings of lust or appetite, it is only to your discredit if you show your sincerity by giving open expression to your sinful desires. Your plain duty is to repress and cover up, and to try. tocrush out, those inipellings. If you feel incltned to be dishonest, or untruthful, or unkind, your duty is to act as yo\x jought to want to do, rather than as you do want to do. ^Jliat^wWdLwe h^yfi iXQ. right^to feel, we have no right to show when we do feel. The evil which is in one's self ought not to be shown out by one's self. It is bad enough to have it inside, and to feel it there. It is still worse to give it expression in act or in word. Being one's self by such a disclosure is being one's worst self, or is, in fact, seeming worse than one's self If, indeed, one ought to feel anger against another, or ought to feel indignation at his course, one rtiay have a duty to make a show of anger, or of indignation, accordingly, whether he feds it for the moment or not;- fo/jn—alL things it is one's duty to seem as he ought to feel, rather, thanto seem as he^ happens to feel.

It is in the ordinary intercourse of life that this truth has its more important applications, and that the difficulties in the way of its application are more apparent to many an honestminded seeker after the right standard of seeming and doing. "Ought I to seem kindly toward one, when I feel unkindly toward him?" "Is it not insincerity on my part, when I seem to like one whom I really dislike?" "How can I be myself when I conceal my feelings of disapprobation of another's character and course in my more familiar conversations with him?" These are the questions which puzzle and perplex, and which often are a means of misleading, those who want to be right and to do right at any cost And these questions are easily answered in the light of the principles already considered.

How you ought to feel is of more importance than how you do feel. If it be your unmistakable duty to feel that the character and conduct of another should have your manifest condemnation, then, indeed, you ought to show that feeling accordingly; but in showing that feeling, you ought also to show another phase of your feelings, or you will fail to be and to seem your true self A judge on the bench, when he sentences a prisoner to the gallows, adds the tender and sympathetic words, " And may God have mercy on your soul * " You ought not to be less kindly and considerate toward one whom you condemn, than is a just magistrate toward a convicted murderer. If, however, you are for the moment swayed by unkind or unjust feelings, you certainly have a duty to battle against those feelings without making known the fact of your battling. In order to be your true self at your best, under such circumstances, you need to repress and control all impulses which are not in the direction of your best self.

If you dislike some qualities in a person, while you recc^^ize other qualities in him as commendable, you ought to feel the force of his good side as truly as you do of his bad side. To show him your dislike of that which you disapprove, without showing him, with like clearness, your approval of that which you can commend, would be to misrepresent your real feelings with reference to him. Hence, in such a case, to be yourself, as you commonly count being yourself, would be to show another self than your own self. Sincerity, so far, would be insincerity. The main question for you to put to yourself, in every such instance, is this: "How ought I to feel toward this person, in view of his and my relations toward our common Father, and in view of the providences that have brought us together just here?" The answer to this" question will indicate to you how you ought to seem to feel.

To be other than one's best and truest self is not to be one's self. To seem other than one's best and truest self is to misrepresent one's self To seem to have less of kindliness of heart, or less of generous appreciation of another's best qualities, than is in one's best and truest nature, is to seem to be other than one's realest self Hence comes the danger, that, in seeking to be ourselves, we shall fail of being ourselves, — as the followers and representatives of Him whose we are and whom we serve.

III.

GIVING OTHERS DUE DEFERENCE.

It has been rightly said that Paul was the choicest specimen of the true Christian gentleman. And it might be also said, that nowhere in the world are the principles and precepts of true politeness so clearly expressed as in the writings of Paul. Even if one cared for nothing beyond the life that now is, and wished no more than to appear well before his fellows, he could not do better than to note carefully the directions which Paul gives to Christians concerning their personal intercourse with other Christians, and with the world at large. Apart from their profounder spiritual meaning, many of the writings of Paul teach the basis and the bounds of courtesy with unerring accuracy; and no courtly gentleman or refined lady can fail of conformity to Paul's injunctions on this subject without falling short of the proper standards of politeness.

Paul's exhibit of the power and beauty of Christian love, in the thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, has been often pointed to as a description of refined courtesy; that courtesy without which all other qualities in man or woman fail to win the hearts of others, and which " vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil." A similar view might fairly be taken of Paul's words to the Philippian Christians, where he urges them to be on the plane of Christ-like courtesy, " doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself; not looking each of you," he says, "to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others."

This injunction is by no means to be limited to a demand for imattainable humility and self-forgetfulness on the part of a Christian believer; it actually prescribes the unvarying duty of the true gentleman and the true lady in all social and business intercourse, in or out of the Church of Chri^ The highest courtesy is sure to recognize the relative superiority of every person with whom one has to do, in that person's immediate sphere; not merely the equality, but for the time being the superiority, of that person. And just here is where so many, who would fain be counted refined and courteous, prove themselves lacking in true gentility.

All admit that they are bound to give deference to those who are unmistakably their superiors; but not all are ready to admit that everybody with whom they are brought into social intercourse or personal relations is their superior. In fact, there are those who pride themselves on letting it be seen that they do not feel themselves inferior to others, especially to those who are looked up to in the community for their social standing, or their intellect, or their good works, or their acquired possessions of any kind. They want it to be understood that they are quite the equals, if not the superiors, of those whom people generally look up to, and who, perhaps, may be supposed to count themselves decidedly above the average. And in this violation of the precept of Paul such persons inevitably violate a canon of true politeness, and prove to all who observe them that they claim for themselves a position to which they are not fairly entitled.

Indeed, it may safely be said that in no way do persons, even in what are called the better classes of society or the higher walks of life, give surer evidence of their lack of gentility, than by their effort to show that they are not a whit inferior to those who are about them; for whoever has the spirit of courtesy — ^which is inseparable from true gentility — ^is sure to be forgetful of self, and thoughtful of others, in all dealings with persons of any station or grade of the world's classifying; above them, below them, or by their side. Those, therefore, who are superior to others, cannot prc^ erly think of impressing their superiority on others; while those who want to prove that they are fully the equals of those with whom they are in converse, merely give prominence to their surely unsuccessful claim.

But how can it be that every one is the superior of every other? And if it is impossible that this should be, why should one of us feel bound to always count himself the inferior? There need be no trouble on this score. Every one is^ in his time and place, the superior of any one with whom he is • brought into any proper relations ; hence every one is in a sense our superior, and deserves our courteous recognition as such. If, for example, the President of the United States should stop, on Pennsylvania Avenue, to have a street bootblack polish his boots, — ^then, for the time being, that bootblack would be the chief actor in the interview. It would be for the bootblack to inform the President where to rest his foot; and it would be for the President to conform to the bootblack's wise suggestion— ^to put his foot on the bootblack's box, and not on the bootblack's head. And if the President did not show a proper deference to that bootblack, in the bootblack's sphere and hour, did not indicate by his speech and bearing that he recognized his temporary dependence on the bootblack's skilled service, he would so far show himself to lack one of the essential qualities of the first gentleman of the Republic. If, on the other hand, that bootblack, " drest in a little brief authority," should pride himself on his temporary superiority to the President, and so fail to show due deference — ^not abject servility, but manly deference — ^to the Chief Magistrate of the nation, he would evidence his lack of an essential quality of a good bootblack. And so all the way up and down in the social scale of life; each should be prompt to esteem the other better than himself— in the other's fitting and timely sphere.