A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and CharacterHillis, Newell Dwight
Philosophy
A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and Character
Hillis, Newell Dwight
Character; Self-culture
But the eyes are the soul's chiefest revelators. Tennyson spoke of
King Arthur's eyes as "pools of purest love." As there is sediment in
the bottom of a glass of impure water, so there is mud in the bottom
of a bad man's eye. Thus, in strange ways, the body tells the story of
the soul. Health hangs its signals out in rosy cheeks; disease and
death foretell their story in the hectic flush, even as reddening
autumn leaves foretell the winter's heavy frost; anxious lines upon
the mother's face betray her secret burdens; the scholar's pallor is
the revelation of his life, while the closely knitted forehead of the
merchant interprets the vexing problems he must solve.
Thinking of the pathetic sadness of Lincoln's face, all seamed as it
was and furrowed with care and anxiety, Secretary Stanton said that
the President's face was a living page, upon which the full history
of the nation's battles and victories was written. We are told that
when the Waldenses could no longer bear the ghastly cruelty of the
inquisitors, they fled to the mountain fastnesses. There, worn out by
suffering, the brave leader was stricken by death. Coming forth from
their hiding-places, the fugitives gathered around the hero's bier.
Stooping, one lifted the hair from the forehead of the dead youth and
said: "This boy's hair, grown thin and white through heroic toil,
witnesseth his heroism. These, the marks of his fidelity." Thus, for
those who have skill to read the writing, every great man's face is
written all over with the literature of character. His body condenses
his entire history, just as the Declaration of Independence is
condensed into the limits of a tiny silver coin.
Calm majesty is in the face of Washington; pathetic patience and
divine dignity in that of Lincoln; unyielding granite is in John
Brown's face, though sympathy hath tempered hardness into softness;
intellect is in Newton's; pure imagination is in Keats' and in
Milton's; heroic substance is in the face of Cromwell and in that of
Luther; pathetic sorrow is found in Dante's eyes; conscience and love
shine in the face of Fénelon. Verily, the body is the soul's
interpreter! Like Paul, each man bears about in his body the marks,
either of ignorance and sin, of fear and remorse, or the marks of
heroism and virtue, of love and integrity. To the gospel of the page
let us add the gospel of the face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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