The Untroubled MindHall, Herbert J. (Herbert James)
Philosophy
The Untroubled Mind
Hall, Herbert J. (Herbert James)
Mental health
It is a great temptation to go on multiplying the rules of the game.
There are so many sensible and necessary pieces of advice which we all
need to have emphasized. That is the course we must try to avoid. The
child needs to be told, arbitrarily for a while, what is right, and what
is wrong, that he must do this, and he must not do that. The time comes,
however, when the growing instinct toward right living is the thing to
foster--not the details of life which will inevitably take care of
themselves if the underlying principle is made right. It must be the
ideal of moral teaching to make clear and pure the source of action.
Then the stream will be clear and pure. Such a stream will purify itself
and neutralize the dangerous inflow along its banks. It is true that
great harm may come from the polluted inflows, but they will be less and
less harmful as the increasing current from the good source flows down.
We shall have to look well to our habits lest serious ills befall, but
that must never be the main concern or we shall find ourselves living
very narrow and labored lives; we shall find that we are failing to
observe one of the most important rules of the game.
VI
THE NERVOUS TEMPERAMENT
Beyond the ugly actual, lo, on every side,
Imagination's limitless domain.
BROWNING.
He that too much refines his delicacy will always endanger his
quiet.
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
The great refinement of many poetical gentlemen has rendered
them practically unfit for the jostling and ugliness of life.
STEVENSON.
It has been my fortune as a physician to deal much with the so-called
nervous temperament. I have come both to fear and to love it. It is the
essence of all that is bright, imaginative, and fine, but it is as
unstable as water. Those who possess it must suffer--it is their lot to
feel deeply, and very often to be misunderstood by their more practical
friends. All their lives these people will shed tears of joy, and more
tears of sorrow. I would like to write of their joy, of the perfect
satisfaction, the true happiness that comes in creating new and
beautiful things, of the deep pleasure they have in the appreciation of
good work in others. But with the instinct of a dog trained for a
certain kind of hunting I find myself turning to the misfortunes and the
ills.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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