The True Citizen: How to Become OneMarkwick, William Fisher
Philosophy
The True Citizen: How to Become One
Markwick, William Fisher
Citizenship -- Problems, exercises, etc.; Conduct of life -- Problems, exercises, etc.; Readers -- Citizenship
We must also educate our dispositions. Some one has said: "Disposition
is a lens through which men and things are seen. A fiery temper, like a
red glass, gives to all objects a lurid glare; a melancholic temper,
like a blue lens, imparts its own hue; through the green spectacles of
jealousy every one else becomes an object of distrust and dislike; and
he who looks through the black glass of malice, finds others wearing the
aspect of his own malevolence. Only the cheerful and charitable soul
sees through a clear and colorless medium, whose transparency shows the
world as it is."
Disposition has also its concave and convex lenses, which magnify some
things and minify others. The self-satisfied man sees every one's
faults in giant proportions; and every one's virtues, but his own,
dwarfed into insignificance. To the fretful man others seem fretful; to
the envious man, envious; and so with the well-disposed, gentle, and
generous; sunshine prevails over shadows. The world is different to
different observers, largely because they have different media through
which they look at it.
Cheerful tempers manufacture solace and joy out of very unpromising
material. They are the magic alchemists who extract sweet essences out
of bitter herbs, like the old colored woman in the smoky hut, who was
"glad of anything to make a smoke with," and, though she had but two
teeth, thanked God they were "_opposite each other!_"
Goodness outranks even uprightness, because the good man aims to do
good to others. Uprightness is the beauty of integrity; goodness is the
loveliness of benevolence. The good man visits the hut of misery, the
hovel of poverty, leaving in a gentle and delicate way, a few comforts
for the table or wardrobe, dainties for the fevered palate of the sick,
or such other helps as the case may call for, as far as his means and
circumstances will allow.
A true education should cover all these points, and many others also;
but it must never be allowed to destroy the pupil's individuality. It
must teach that a person can be himself, and study all the models he
pleases. Webster studied the orations of Cicero so thoroughly that he
could repeat most of them by heart; but they did not destroy or
compromise his individuality, because he did not try to be Cicero. It
has been said that Michael Angelo, who was the most original of ancient
or modern artists, was more familiar with the model statues and
paintings of the world than any other man. He studied the excellences
of all the great works of art, not to copy or imitate them, but to
develop his powers. "As the food he consumed became bone and muscle by
assimilation; so, by mental assimilation, the knowledge he acquired by
art-models entered into the very composition of his mind."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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