92 SOLITUDE AND SOCIETY. sees that men have very different manners from his own, and in their way admirable. In his childhood and youth he has had many checks and censures, and thinks modestly enough of his own endowment. When afterwards he comes to unfold it in propitious circumstance, it seems the only talent; he is delighted with his success, and accounts himself already the fellow of the great. But he goes into a mob, into a banking-house, into a mechanic's shop, into a mill, into a laboratory, into a ship, into a camp, and in each new place he is no better than an idiot other talents take place, and rule the hour. Emerson. "Good sense, never the product of a single mind, is the fruit of intercourse and collision. The cares, and toils, and necessities, the refreshments and delights of common life, are the great teachers of common sense; nor can there be any effective school of sober reason, where these are excluded." "A man who has little or nothing to do with other men on terms of open and free equality, needs the native sense of five to behave himself only with a fair average of propriety." Wherever we go, common sense comes first; and when the subject is completed, again comes last. First glances are always charged with it, in a more or less latent form; the business of investigation is simply to eliminate it as pure as possible from its accidents. Wilkinson. SOCIETY A HELP AND A HINDRANCE. 93 "Depend upon it," said Stanton, " that in our generation society will be a hindrance more than a help." "I believe so, too," said Oakfield, "but in vastly different degrees; sometimes so slight a hindrance that a strong will may almost force it into a help, at any rate has little difficulty in overcoming it; sometimes again a hindrance which the strongest will hardly be able to live down; and must even cut and run for it." "Well," replied Stanton, "it is, I believe, partly from constitutional temperament, partly from habit, that I cannot understand the importance you attach to society one way or the other. To govern one's self, to cherish one's own spiritual life, seems to be a task so essentially one's own, that a society of angels could scarcely make it easier, nor of devils harder. The constant companionship of the best men would not, I believe, make purity of heart or unselfishness more easy; good society is, doubtless, very pleasant, but no more essential than other pleasant things; depend upon it that Heaven has willed that we should live, no less than die alone." "And do not you think that this very theory of isolation from others, living for yourself, and dying for yourself, has in itself something selfish in it?" "No," said Stanton, "not if fairly stated and rightly named; neither of which things have you done. Independence is very different from isolation, and living alone is a very different thing from living to one's self." "To be warped unconsciously by the magnetic influence of all around, is the destiny, to a certain extent, of even 94 SOCIETY A HELP AND A HINDRANCE. the greatest souls; but to have the conscious life over which we do exercise control, affected by other men, that is the sin of dependence." Oakfield. Would'st with thyself be acquainted, then see what the others are doing. But would'st thou understand others, look into thy own heart. Schiller. Solitude shows us what we should be; society shows us what we are. Cecil. Solitude cherishes great virtues, and destroys little ones. Sidney Smith. A man can do without his own approbation in much society, but he must make great exertions to gain it when he lives alone. Ib. A talent is perfected in solitude, says Goethe; a character in the stream of the world. Si nous sommes trois qui voyagions ensemble, je trouverai necessairement deux instituteurs ; je choiserai l'homme de bien pour l'imiter, et l'homme pervers pour me corriger. Rochefoucauldt. If it is a matter of indifference, in the formation of human character, whether we mix in society or not, this earth might have been so divided that each human being might A CURE FOR A CONTRADICTORY SPIRIT. 95 have had a little planet and an immortality exclusively his own. Alcott. There are few good listeners in the world who make all the use they might of the understandings of others in the conduct of their own. No individual ingenuity can sift and examine a subject with as much variety and success, as the minds of many men, put in motion by many causes, and affected by an endless variety of accidents. Nothing, in my humble opinion, would bring an understanding so forward, as this habit of ascertaining and weighing the opinions of others; a point in which almost all men of abilities are deficient; whose first impulse, if they are young, is too often to contradict; or, if the manners of the world have cured them of that, to listen only with attentive ears but with most obdurate and unconquerable entrails. I would recommend to such young men, an intellectual regimen, of which I myself, in an earlier period of life, have felt the advantage; and that is, to assent to the two first propositions that they hear every day; and not only to assent to them, but, if they can, to improve and embellish them; and to make the speaker a little more in love with his own opinion than before. When they have a little got over the bitterness of assenting, they may gradually increase the number of assents, and so go on as their constitution will bear it. Sidney Smith. I do not quite agree in what you say relative to the 96 LEARNING FROM OTHERS. mode of treating others by humoring their natural bent. As far as regards myself, I do not wish it, and would always rather that my peculiar cast of mind should be disregarded in my intercourse with men. For, otherwise, what is it but to be thought so fixed in our habits as to be incapable of change, and perhaps thus to be strengthened in bad ones? In proportion, therefore, as I see that any one willingly labors to improve his character, and does not shun mortifications as long as they are beneficial, I consider the bent of his mind less, and may thus, probably, appear to spare those the least whom I esteem the most. William Von Humboldt. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man always throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo he has passed on invulnerable. As long as all that is said, is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honied words of praise are spoken for me, protected before his enemies. not succumb, is a benefactor. I feel as one that lies un- |