SOCIETY CURES CONCEIT AND SELFISHNESS. 89

"A little explained, a little endured, a little passed over as a foible, and lo, the jagged atoms will fit like smooth mosaic."

Tschudi, a German author, remarks, "That it is at once the greatest abuse, when men destroy what is good in order to prevent abuse."

We need only go into society, under certain of its semblances, to discover that no benefit or blessing can be greater than to be delivered from the delusion of supposing ourselves to be interesting, and that nobody sees more of us than we choose to disclose. No deception is so common and so unsuspected as that of overvaluing ourselves, and of supposing that this and the other disclosure of our interior condition is graceful or interesting.. Society shows us the mistake we have made in supposing ourselves interesting or important in any way, and under that idea, in casting about for means of creating a sensation. This desire of creating a sensation exists, perhaps, in greater strength in the female sex than in the other; but it is a potent part of humanity in both.

I have spoken here of society in its full dress and galaday appearances. In the undress and ease of genial intercourse, it is one of the influences which operate the most beneficially upon the mind and affections; for it is a singular and painful thing, that many, perhaps I might say most persons, find more sympathy, as to their taste and imagination, and general mental powers, everywhere

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SOCIETY MAKES KINDLY AND CATHOLIC.

rather than in their own domestic circle; and hence it may be that their hearts so readily open to the pleasing impression which attends the consciousness of being understood and valued, and that they become sometimes indiscreetly communicative.

There is another advantage which nothing but refined and intellectual society affords, and that is the polishing off of those angularities of selfishness which are so strikingly developed in uneducated people. It matters not what the intellectual power may be, nor what the genius, nor what the study; there is in the natural heart, a coarse, rough instinct to seize whatever upon make for personal interest, which is only to be tamed and properly regulated by the interchange of that courteous communication which exists between well-informed and welleducated persons.

may

Reminiscences of Thought and Feeling.

Children have a strong sense of physiognomy, and this instinct, if vivid, and if left to take its own course, very readily, and especially in the female mind, becomes allied with unamiable or even malign sentiments; and in its ripened form constitutes an order of character remote from whatever is lovely and benevolent.

Now, in any such case, instead of preaching charity in a formal manner, one might endeavor to put the keen, observing instinct upon another track; and by directing the shrewd eye to more broad characteristics, partly comic, partly picturesque, give innocent occupation to a faculty that will be sure to find its objects.

SOLITUDE AND SOCIETY.

91

It is certain that while malevolent or chilling sentiments almost invariably connect themselves with a keen sense of personal peculiarities, when this power of discrimination takes its range only within a narrow circle, as upon the individuals of a neighborhood, on the contrary, bland and kindly feelings, and a disposition to find something good under every form of humanity, is the usual, if not constant accompaniment of the very same faculty, when brought to bear upon the wide varieties of human nature, in all classes of society, in all countries, and all times. None are more indulgent toward their fellows, none assimilate more readily with persons and modes new to them, none walk about the world with a broader preparation of comprehensive charity, none are so free from petty jealousies and sour evil surmises, none so exempt from splenetic prejudices, as those who have a quick eye to catch the dramatic and the picturesque in human character, and whose imagination teems with whatever of this sort may be furnished by travel and converse with the world, or by history and antiquarian lore. The scrutiny of human nature on a small scale is one of the most dangerous of employments; but the study of it on a large scale is one of the safest and most salubrious.

Isaac Taylor.

Solitude would ripen a plentiful crop of despots. The recluse thinks of men as having his manner, or as not having his manner; and as having degrees of it, more or less. But when he comes into a public assembly, he

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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