Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 by Various

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"The more amusements," continues the writer, "partake of an useful
character, the more lasting they are. This is never the case with
trifles; when the enjoyment is over, they leave little or nothing
in the mind. They are not steps to something else, they have no
connexion with other and further _results, to be brought out by
further endeavours. The attempt to make life a series of quickly
succeeding emotions, will ever prove a miserable failure;_
whereas, when the chief part of our time is spent in labour,
active power increases--the exertion of it becomes habit--the
mind gathers strength; and emotion being husbanded, retains its
freshness, and the spirits preserve their alacrity through life.
It follows that the most agreeable labours are those which
superadd to an object of important and lasting interest a due
mixture of intermediate and somewhat diversified results. To a
mechanic, making a set of chairs and tables, for example, is more
agreeable than working daily at a sawpit. But nothing can deprive
the industrious man (however undiversified his employment) of the
advantage of having a constant and important pursuit--viz.
earning the necessaries and comforts of life; and when we
consider the uneasiness of a life without any steady pursuit, and
how slight is the influence that such as one merely voluntary has
over most men, it seems certain that, as a general rule, we do
not err in representing the necessity of labour as a safeguard of
happiness."

Active habits are such as action gives: passive habits are such as our
condition qualifies us to receive. In emotion, however violent, we may be
passive, the forgiving and the vindictive man are for a time equally
passive in their emotions. It is when the vindictive man proceeds to
retaliation upon an adversary that he becomes a voluntary agent. It is
often difficult to analyse the ingredients of our thought, and to
determine how far they are involuntary and how far they are spontaneous.
Nor is this an enquiry the solution of which can ever affect the majority
of mankind: it is not with such subtleties that the practice of the
moralist is concerned. It is a psychological fact, which never can be
repeated too often, that habit deadens impression and fortifies activity.
It gives energy to that power which depends on the sanction of the
will--it renders the sensations which are nearly passive every day more
languid and insignificant.

"Mon sachet de fleurs," says Montaigne, "sert d'abord a mon nez; mais,
apres que je m'en suis servi huit jours, il ne sert plus qu'au nez des
assistants." So the taste becomes accustomed to the most irritating
stimulants, and is finally palsied by their continued application, yet
the necessity of having recourse to these provocatives becomes daily more
imperious.

"Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops
Nec sitim pellit."

The tanner who lives among his hides till he is insensible to their
exhalations--the surgeon who has conquered the disgust with which the
objects around him must fill an ordinary individual--the sensualist, on
whose jaded appetite all the resources of art and all the loveliness of
nature are employed in vain--may serve as common instances of the first
part of the proposition; and the astonishing facility acquired by
particular men in the business with which they are conversant, are proofs
no less irrefragable of the second. Can any argument be conceived which is
more decisive in favour of the moral economy to which even this lower
world is subject, than the undeniable fact, that virtue is fortified by
exercise, and pain conquered by endurance; while vice, like the bearer of
the sibyl's books, extorts every hour a greater sacrifice for less
enjoyment? The passage in Mammon's speech is no less philosophically
accurate than it is poetically beautiful--

"Out torments also may in length of time
Become our elements, these piercing fires
As soft as now severe, our temper changed
Into their temper, which must needs remove
The sensible of pain."

So does man pass on his way, from youth to manhood, from manhood till the
shadow of death falls upon him; and while his moral and physical structure
adapts itself to the incessant vicissitudes of his being, he imagines
himself the same. The same in sunshine and in tempest--in the temperate
and the torrid zone--in sickness and in health--in joy and sorrow--at
school and in the camp or senate--still, still he is the same. His
passions change, his pleasures alter; what once filled him with rapture,
is now indifferent, it may be loathsome. The friends of his youth are his
friends no longer--other faces are around him--other voices echo in his
ears. Still he is the same--the same, when chilling experience has taught
him its bitter lesson, and when life in all its glowing freshness first
dawned upon his view. The same, when "vanity of vanities" is graven upon
his heart--as when his youthful fancy revelled in scenes of love, of
friendship, and of renown. The same, when cold, cautious, interested,
suspicious, guilty--as when daring, reckless, frank, confiding, innocent.
Still the dream continues, still the vision lasts, until some warning yet
unknown--the tortures of disease, or the loss of the very object round
which his heartstrings were entwined, anguish within, and desolation
without--stir him into consciousness, and remind him of that fast
approaching change which no illusion can conceal. Such is the pliability
of our nature, so varied are the modes of our being; and thus, through the
benevolence of Him who made us, the cause which renders our keenest
pleasures transient, makes pain less acute, and death less terrible.

It follows from this, that in youth positive attainment is a matter of
little moment, compared with the habits which our instructors encourage us
to acquire. The fatal error which is casting a blight over our plans of
education, is to look merely to the immediate result, totally disregarding
the motive which has led to it, and the qualities of which it is the
indication; yet, would those to whom the delicate and most responsible
task of education is confided, but consider that habits of mind are formed
by inward principle, and not external action, they would adopt a more
rational system than that to which mediocrity owes its present triumph
over us; and which bids fair to wither up, during another generation, the
youth and hopes of England. Such infatuation is equal to that of the
husbandman who should wish to deprive the year of its spring, and the
plants of their blossoms, in hopes of a more nutritious and abundant
harvest.

"The inward principle required to give habits of industry,
temperance, good temper, and so forth, is the express intention
of being industrious, temperate, and gentle, and regulating one's
actions accordingly. But the inward principle exercised by a
routine of irksome restraints, submitted to passively on no other
grounds but the laws of authority, or the influence of fashion,
or imposed merely as the necessary condition of childhood, may be
only that of yielding to present impression. He who, in youth,
yields passively to fear or force, in after life may be found to
yield equally to pleasure or temper; the habit of yielding to
present impressions, in the first case, prepares the mind for
yielding to them in the second, without any attempt at
self-control.

"The necessity of reducing the young, in the first instance, to
implicit obedience, and the utility of a strict routine of
duties, is not hereby disputed. The impressions arising from
every species of restraint and coercion, whether from the command
of another or our own reason, being almost invariably unpleasant
at first, it is necessary (on the theory of habit) to weaken
their force by repetition, before the principle of
self-government can be expected to act. But the point insisted on
is, that weakening the pain of restraint and of submission to
rules, will not necessarily create an intention of adhering to
the rules, when coercion ceases. An intention is a mental action,
and even when excited, it is neither impossible nor uncommon that
the practice of forming intentions may be accompanied by the
practice of breaking them; and as the shame and remorse of so
doing wear out through frequency, a character of weakness is
formed."

Although we regret the omission of some observations on waste and
prodigality--remarks in which the most profound knowledge of the best
authorities on this subject is tempered with a strict attention to
practical interest, and a minute acquaintance with the affairs of ordinary
life--we proceed to the chapters on "Frivolity and Ignorance," with which,
and an admirable dissertation on the authority of reason, the volume
terminates. These chapters yield to none in this admirable work for
utility and importance; there are three subjects on which the influence of
frivolity, baneful as it always is, is most peculiarly dangerous and
destructive--education, politics, and religion. On all these great points,
inseparably connected as they are with human happiness and virtue, the
frivolity of women may give a bias to the character of the individual,
which will be traced in his career to the last moment of his existence.
The author well observes that frivolity and ignorance, rather than
deliberate guilt, are the causes of political error and tergiversation. If
there are few persons ready to devote themselves to the good of their
species, and carrying their attention beyond kindred and acquaintance, to
comprise the most distant posterity and regions the most remote within the
scope of their benevolence; so there are few of those monsters in
selfishness, who would pursue their own petty interests when the happiness
of millions is an obstacle to its gratification; but as a leaf before the
eye will hide a universe, self-love limits the intellectual horizon to a
compass inconceivably narrow; and the prosperity of nations, when placed
in the balance with a riband or a pension, has too often kicked the beam.
Professional business, and the love of detail, which is so deeply rooted
in most English natures, tends also to contract the thoughts, to erect a
false standard of merit, and to fill the mind with petty objects. As an
instance of this, it may be remarked that Lord Somers is the only great
man who, in England, has ever filled a judicial situation. So wide is the
difference between present success and future reputation--so weak on all
sides but one, are those who have limited themselves to one side only--so
technical and engrossing are the avocations of an English lawyer. The
best, if not the only remedy for this evil, is, in the words of our
author, the "study of well-chosen books."

"Life must often consist of acts or concerns which, taken
individually, are trivial; but the speculations of great minds
relate to important objects. By their eloquence they draw forth
the best emotions of which we are capable, they fill our minds
with the knowledge of great and general truths, which, if they
relate to the works of creation, exalt our nature and almost give
us a new existence; or if they unfold the conditions and duties
of human life, they kindle our desire for worthy ends, and teach
us how to promote them. We learn to consider ourselves not as
single and detached beings, with separate interests from others,
but as parts of that great class who are the support of society--
that is, the upright, the intelligent, and the industrious. Hence
we cease to be absorbed by one set of narrow ideas; and the least
duties are dignified by being viewed as parts of a general
system. The bulk of mankind must and ought to confine their
attention principally to their own immediate business. But if
they who belong to the higher orders, do not avail themselves of
their command of time, to enlarge their minds and acquire
knowledge, one of the great uses of an upper class will be lost."

The trite and ridiculous axiom, the common refuge of imbecility, that
women should take no interest in politics, is then sifted and exposed; it
would be as wise to say, that women should take no interest in the blood
that circulates through their bodies because they are not physicians, or
in the air they breathe because they are not chemists. The people who are
most fond of repeating this absurdity, are, it may be observed, the very
people who are most furious with women for not acquiescing at once in any
absurdity which they may think proper to promulgate as an incontrovertible
truth. Ill temper, and rash opinions, and crude notions, are always
mischievous; but it is not in politics alone that they are exhibited, and
the women most applauded for not _meddling_ with politics, (an expression
which, as our author properly observes, assumes the whole matter in
dispute,) are generally those who adhere to the most obsolete doctrines
with the greatest tenacity, and pursue those who differ with them in
opinion with the most unmitigated rancour. In short, it is not till
enquiry supersedes implicit belief, till violence gives place to
reflection, till the study of sound and useful writers takes the place of
sweeping and indiscriminate condemnation, that this aphorism is brought
forward by those who would have listened with delight to the wildest
effusions of bigotry and ignorance. But in the work before us, the author
(convincing as her reasons are) has furnished the most complete practical
refutation of this ridiculous error.

Infinitely worse, however, than any evil which can arise from this or any
other source, is that which the opinions and ideas of a frivolous woman
must entail upon those unhappy beings of whom she superintends the
education.

"Turpe est difficiles habere nugas
Et stultus labor est ineptiarum,"

is a text on which, even in this great and free country, many comments may
be found.

The pursuit of eminence in trifles, the common sign of a bad heart, is an
infallible proof of a feeble understanding. A man may dishonour his birth,
ruin his estate, lose his reputation, and destroy his health, for the sake
of being the first jockey or the favourite courtier of his day. And how
should it be otherwise, when from the lips whence other lessons should
have proceeded, selfishness has been inculcated as a duty, a desire for
vain distinctions and the love of pelf encouraged as virtues, and a
splendid equipage, or it may be some bodily advantage, pointed out as the
highest object of human ambition? To set the just value on every
enjoyment, to choose noble and becoming objects of pursuit, are the first
lessons a child should learn; and if he does not learn their rudiments on
his mother's knees, he will hardly acquire the knowledge of them
elsewhere. The least disparagement of virtue, the slightest admiration for
trifling and merely extrinsic objects, may produce an indelible effect on
the tender mind of youth; and the mother who has taught her son to bow
down to success, to pay homage to wealth and station, which virtue and
genius should alone appropriate, is the person to whom the meanness of the
crouching sycophant, the treachery of the trading politician, the
brutality of the selfish tyrant, and the avarice of the sordid miser, in
after life must be attributed.

This argument is closed by some very judicious remarks on the degree in
which the perusal of works of imagination is beneficial.

"It is not easy to explain to a person whose mind is trifling,
the consequences of the over-indulgence in passive impressions
produced by light reading, or to make them understand the
different effect produced by the highest order of works of
imagination, and the trivial compositions which inundate the
press, with no merit but some commonplace moral. Both are classed
together as works of amusement; but the first enrich the mind
with great and beautiful ideas, and, provided they be not
indulged in to an extravagant excess, refine the feelings to
generosity and tenderness. They counteract the sordid or the
petty turn, which we are liable to contract from being wholly
immersed in mere worldly business, or given up to the follies of
the great world; in either case confined too much to intercourse
with barren hearts and narrow minds. It is of great use to the
'dull, sullen prisoner in the body's cage' sometimes 'to peep
out,' and be made to feel that it has aspirations for somewhat
more excellent than it has ever known; and that its own ideas can
stretch forth into a grandeur beyond what this real existence
provides for it. It is good for us to feel that the vices into
which we are beguiled are hateful to our own minds in
contemplation, and that it is our unconquerable nature to love
and adore that virtue we do not, or cannot, attain to."

The remarks on the influence of frivolity on religion, on the mistaken
name and worldly spirit introduced amongst its most solemn ordinances, are
no less excellent. After pointing out the danger of mistaking excitement
for devotion, and of separating the duties of man from the will of God,
the sanctions of religion from the lessons of morality, the writer
observes--

"The weak and ignorant are peculiarly liable to be infected with
these doctrines, and to them they are peculiarly hurtful. Unable
to take a just view of their particular duties, or of the uses
and purposes of our natural faculties, creatures of impulse,
slaves of circumstances, the pleasures of this hour fill them
with vanity, the devotion of the next with enthusiasm, or perhaps
terror. Charmed by worldly follies because they are ignorant or
idle, and without resistance to vice because they have never
learned self-command, they seek to extirpate all the natural
emotions and desires which they do not know how to regulate, and
so give up the world. But they deceive themselves; their moral
defects are not lessened; they have only changed their objects.
The frivolity which formerly made trifles absorb them, now spends
itself on religion, which it degrades. Whatever the former
defects of their character, whether selfishness, vanity, pride,
ill-temper, indolence, or any other, it remains unconquered,
though the manner in which it exhibits itself is different. In
one respect they are much worse; formerly they were less blind to
their own imperfections; they sometimes suspected they were
wrong; now they are quite satisfied they are right; nor can they
easily be undeceived, because, when about to examine their hearts
and their conduct, the error in their views directs their efforts
to a false standard."

We think we cannot more appropriately close the faint outline, in which
we have endeavoured, however feebly, to shadow forth the merit of these
volumes, than by placing before our readers the tribute to departed
excellence, which this touching and finished picture is intended to
convey.

"Leaving the contemplation of feverish excitement, fantastic and
complicated subtleties, angry zeal, and dissocial passions, I
turn to the records of memory, where are graven for ever the
lineaments of one who was indeed a disciple of Christ, and whose
character seemed the earthly reflection of his. Wherever there
was existence her benevolence flowed forth, never enfeebled by
the distance of its object, yet flushing the least of daily
pleasures with its warmth. Her views rose to the most
comprehensive moral grandeur, while her calm, uncompromising
energy against sin, was combined with an ever-flowing sympathy
for weakness and woe. She spent her life in one continued system
of active beneficence, in which her business, her projects, her
pleasures, were but so many varied forms of serving her
fellow-creatures. Never for a moment did a reflection for herself
cross the current of her purposes for them. Her whole heart so
went with their distresses and their joys, that she scarcely
seemed to have an interest apart from theirs. The simplicity of
her character was peculiarly striking, in the unhesitating
readiness with which she received--I might even say, with which
she grasped at--the correction of her errors, and listened to the
suggestions of other persons. One undivided desire possessed her
mind--it was not to seem right, but to do right.

"What heightened the resemblance between her and the model she
followed, was, that her counsels came not from a bosom that had
never been shaken with the passions she admonished, or the
sorrows she endeavoured to soothe. Her character was one of deep
sensibility and passions strong even to violence; but they were
controlled and directed by such vivid faith as has never been
surpassed. Her long life had tried her with almost every pang
that attends the attachment of such beings to the mortal and the
suffering, the erring and perverse; and when those sorrows came,
that reached her heart through its deepest and most sacred
affections, the passion burst forth, that showed what the energy
of that principle must have been, that could have brought such a
mind to a tenor of habitual calmness and serenity. When every
element of anguish had been mingled together in one dreadful cup,
and reason for a week or two was tottering in its seat, she was
seen to resume the struggle against the passions that for a
moment had conquered. The bonds that attached her to life were
indeed broken for ever, but she recovered her heart-felt
submission to God, and she learned by degrees again to be happy
in the happiness she gave.

"It was this depth and strength of feeling that gave her a power
over others, seldom surpassed, I believe, by any other mortal. In
her the erring and the wretched found a sure refuge from
themselves. The weakness that shrunk from the censure or the
scorn of others, could be poured out to her as to one whose
mission upon earth was to pity and to heal; for she knew the
whole range of human infirmity, and that the wisest have the
roots of those frailties that conquer the weak. But in restoring
the fallen to their connexion with the honoured, she never held
out a hope that they might parley with their temptations, or
lower their standard of virtue: a confession to her cut off all
self-delusion as to culpable conduct or passions. While she
inspired the most uncompromising condemnation of the thing that
was wrong, she never advised what was too hard for the "bruised
reed;" she chose not the moment of excitement to rebuke the
misguidings of passion, nor of weakness to point out the rigour
of duty. But strength came in her presence: she seemed to bring
with her irresistible evidence that any thing could be done which
she said ought to be done. The truths of religion, stripped of
fantastic disguises, appeared at her call with a living reality,
and for a time, at least, the troubles of life sank down to their
just level. When our sorrows are too big for our own bosoms, if
others receive then with stoicism, it repels all desire to seek
relief at their hands; but the calmness with which she attended
to the effusions and perturbations of grief, seemed the earnest
of safety from one who had passed through the storm. The deep and
tender expression of her noble countenance suggested that feeling
with which a superior being might be supposed to look down from
heaven on the anguish of those who are still in the toils, but
know not the reward that awaits them.

"Every thing petty seemed to drop off from her mind, but she
imbibed the spirit of essentials so perfectly, she followed it
throughout with such singleness of heart, that its influence
affected her minutest actions, not by an effort of studied
attention, but with the steadiness of a natural law. Nature and
revelation she regarded as the two parts of one great connected
system; she always contemplated the one with reference to the
other; her views were therefore all practical and free from
confusion, and nothing that promoted the welfare of this world
could cease to be a part of her duty to God. It was her maxim
that the motive dignified the action, however trivial in itself;
and all the actions of her life were ennobled by the motive of
obedience to an all-powerful Being, because he is the pure
essence of wisdom and goodness. In the virtue of those who had
not the consoling belief of the Christian, she still saw the
handwriting of God, that cannot be effaced from a generous mind;
and she used to dwell with delight on the idea that the good man,
from whose eyes the light of faith was withheld in this life,
would arise with rapture in the next, to the knowledge that a
happiness was in store for him which he had not dared to believe.

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